New York Family Law Blog

A woman was put in jail after her children were injured after being awarded for good behavior. The mother attempted to award her child who helped her clean the house, a
New York Family Lawyer mentioned.

The 8-year-old and 9-year-old children were taken to the hospital after they fell from the trunk of her car. One of the children is in serious condition. The other child was released from the hospital. Only two of her children fell from the car. It is unknown how many children the woman has.

A police officer said the child has internal injuries. The child is unable to eat or speak.

The woman said she braked quickly to prevent hitting a child on a bicycle causing her children to fall from the car. The police say the child in serious condition has wounds similar to people who was run over with a car. The mother said she did not run her child over.

Even though the woman realized she made a mistake, the judge charged her with two counts of injury to a child. Each charge is a third-degree felony.

The father was at work at the time of the accident. The mother told the court that her children begged to ride on her car’s trunk after helping her. Authorities in The Bronx and Staten Island are particularly hard with these cases.

The woman spent the night in jail because her husband could not afford to post bail. Her bail is $50,000. Child Protective Services has been called in to investigate the safety of the children.

Continue reading "Mother jailed after children fall from top of a car, a New York Family Lawyer explains " »

About two months ago, the Obama Administration announced that it would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the controversial act that restricts federal benefits for heterosexual couples. Since that announcement, Immigration Equality, a nonprofit based in Washington and New York that advocates in favor of gay immigrants, announced its plans to challenge the immigration law affecting same-sex couples.
As a New York Family Lawyer relates, gay couples face a conundrum when one of the two is a foreign national. They have to make hard decisions. Either the immigrant partner has to live in the shadows of America, hiding and becoming paranoid, or both have to move to a more accommodating country. The decision to leave your country of birth is a monumental leap, and some wonder why it should even have to be considered.
A NYC Family Lawyer shares that under current legislation, heterosexual couples can sponsor their spouse for visas or green cards. Recently, however, U.S. lawmakers reintroduced a bill that will allow gay Americans to do the same with their same-sex partners. The Uniting American Families Act was introduced in both the House and the Senate, and has the largest number of supporters it’s had since 2000 when it was introduced. While the bill has remained stagnant for the last decade, now there are 98 cosponsors of the bill in the House and 18 in the Senate. If passed, UAFA will allow Americans to sponsor their gay “permanent partner,” who is defined as someone who has the intention of maintaining a lifelong intimate relationship with his or her partner. Same sex marriage is on the agenda in counties like Brooklyn and The Bronx.
At the same time as they are reviving this bill’s life, members of Congress are urging the Attorney General to stall deportations for foreign nationals who would be affected by the new bill. They are asking that the Attorney General influence the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allowing for lenience in the cases of all gay immigrants who would become eligible for a marriage visa if the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed or if the Uniting American Families Act is passed.

Continue reading "Bill Reintroduced to Congress: Same-Sex Couples to Sponsor Foreign Partners " »

Authorities continue to search for the missing head of 10-year-old disabled girl, Zahra after a long search revealed her desecrated body, said New York Family Lawyers.
Elise Baker, 42, is accused of abusing, murdering and dismembering the girl’s body, according to NYC Family Lawyer reports. Coroner reports said Zahra died “as a result of undetermined homicidal violence.”
The child’s remains were found spread between two different locations with two different types of tool marks on her bones. The coroner concluded she had died before she was dismembered and that animals had eaten her flesh. There are many cases of abuse which arise in Brooklyn and The Bronx but none as gruesome as this one.
New York Family Lawyers said Elisa Baker had a "history and pattern of physical, verbal and psychological abuse" against the child and that family members accused her of “taking advantage of a position of trust and confidence" in order kill Zahra and then "desecrated her body to hinder detection and prosecution."
Authorities said details of the child’s death "must be kept close to the investigation and not be discussed in order to protect this case."
Zahra, who while struggling with cancer, lost a leg and lost most of her hearing, was reported missing in the fall, but police speculate she had disappeared many weeks earlier.
When she was reported missing, her stepmother allegedly issued a phony $1 million reward for her return.
Not long after the search began, authorities found a prosthetic leg matching the description and serial number of Zahra’s. The child reportedly had a very hard life after being abandoned by her biological mother as a baby, struggling with cancer and ending up with an abusive stepmother in the end.
A neighbor said, “Zahra was abused. She was often bruised and was very quiet.”
Before the child’s body was discovered, Elisa Baker had already been indicted for obstructing justice, a charge related to the ransom note and sits in jail awaiting trial.
A few weeks before authorities found the remains, Elisa Baker wrote in a letter that the child was dead, but showed no remorse. She seemed to feel sorrier for herself, said a New York Family Lawyer, while she made vague accusations about her husband doing something "horrifying" to Zahra after she was dead.
Baker’s attorney called this accusation “a desperate attempt at distraction.”

Continue reading "Stepmother accused of murder and severe abuse" »

A mom has been charged with shooting and killing her two children, a New York Family Lawyer has indicated. She is being held without bail until the trial.
Month’s earlier police went to her house after being called about a physical abuse incident. The mom had been fighting with her teen daughter. Her 16 year old daughter claimed she was slapped in the face multiple times after arguing with her mother. No physical injuries were seen so the mom was not arrested at that time, according to a New York Family Attorney. This was the first time police ever had a call concerning the mother.
"It appeared to just be typical tensions that parents have with teenagers," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. "The daughter had talked back; the mother slapped her for it. The daughter was upset that she had been punished and then she also expressed regret for the things she had said to her mother, and she knew that she was wrong. Certainly none of that would be an indication that it was going to rise to the level of a mother killing her children." The police feel that they did everything according to the law and no action could have been taken against the mother that would have prevented this horrible action.

A police report stated that the 16 year old daughter had been seeing a counselor for a few months before the incident because she has been verbally abusive to her mother. The girl felt bad for yelling at her mom and was trying to learn how to control her emotions. The teen also told her counselor that the mom would slap her in the face if she talked back. The counselor told the teen that slapping in the face is not an acceptable method of punishment.

A New York Family Lawyer explained that even though this mother of two would sometimes slap her children in the face, no one expected her to shoot and kill them.

This mother has only been a mom for a few years. She was a step mom to these two teen age children. She doesn’t have any biological children of her own.

Continue reading "A mom shoots her two children after they talk back " »

A mom has been charged with shooting and killing her two children, a New York Family Lawyer reported. She is being held without bail until the trial.
Month’s earlier police went to her house after being called about a physical abuse incident. The mom had been fighting with her teen daughter. Her 16 year old daughter claimed she was slapped in the face multiple times after arguing with her mother. No physical injuries were seen so the mom was not arrested at that time, according to a New York Family Attorney. This was the first time police ever had a call concerning the mother.
"It appeared to just be typical tensions that parents have with teenagers," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. "The daughter had talked back; the mother slapped her for it. The daughter was upset that she had been punished and then she also expressed regret for the things she had said to her mother, and she knew that she was wrong. Certainly none of that would be an indication that it was going to rise to the level of a mother killing her children." The police feel that they did everything according to the law and no action could have been taken against the mother that would have prevented this horrible action.

A police report stated that the 16 year old daughter had been seeing a counselor for a few months before the incident because she has been verbally abusive to her mother. The girl felt bad for yelling at her mom and was trying to learn how to control her emotions. The teen also told her counselor that the mom would slap her in the face if she talked back. The counselor told the teen that slapping in the face is not an acceptable method of punishment.

A New York Family Lawyer indicated that even though this mother of two would sometimes slap her children in the face, no one expected her to shoot and kill them.

This mother has only been a mom for a few years. She was a step mom to these two teen age children. She doesn’t have any biological children of her own.

Continue reading "A mom shoots her two children after they talk back" »