New York Family Law Blog

In what must surely come as a shock to one and all – a surprise on the level of the Trojan horse itself – Jesse James (the ex husband of Oscar Winning Actress, and America’s sweetheart, Sandra Bullock) had to stop his other ex-wife from having any contact with their children, said a New York Family Lawyer. James’ other ex-wife is also an actress: an adult film star with numerous pornographic film credits to her name. James claims that the woman threatened to abduct the child. That was too much for James to handle and he cut off her court ordered visitation rights, reports a New York Family Lawyer. However, the two sides have since worked out a temporary deal where upon the woman would have a temporary visitation plan. The two sides will then meet again in court in a month to work out a more substantial and lasting plan, notes a New York Family Lawyer.

The two had a previous plan in place but it was modified by the court after the ex-wife/porn star was arrested on tax evasion charges and sentenced to jail, says a New York Family Lawyer.

James had a rather public breakup with Bullock after she believed he was unfaithful to her. He has since been romantically linked to tattoo artist Kat Von D, who stars on a reality show.

More and more people aren’t just living their life, they’re living their life for all the world to see. From Myspace to Twitter to Facebook people are taking some of their most intimate moments and putting it out for everyone with a computer and some time to view, stare at, and digest, says a New York Family Lawyer. Some times these posting can be innocent and may cause some embarrassment in the morning but other times social networking website have lead to serious consequences. Lives have been lost, careers destroyed, and as one mother learned children taken away, reports a New York Family Lawyer.

But for the father of the child Facebook was a life saver. The father had serious suspicions that his ex-wife was not taking proper care of his child, reports a New York Family Lawyer. He long thought she was associating with people of low moral character and putting his child in a not safe at all environment. His only problem was he had no concrete proof. That is, he had no concrete proof until Facebook came along. The man hopped online and began surveying his ex-wife’s Facebook profile webpage, says a New York Family Lawyer. He immediately had access to hundreds of photos, photos that showed the woman engaging in semi-nude public activity with another woman and hanging out with a man recklessly brandishing a semi automatic weapon.

The man was able to use this photos to convince a judge to drug test the woman. When she failed the test the man was awarded custody of his child. It is just one more example of how people living their lives online is changing the way people live their lives off line.

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On screen, Charlie Sheen plays a sex crazed, drunk and out of control party animal – and as is often the case life imitates art. It reads like something out of one of Sheen’s movies: passed out drunk in a hotel room next to a hooker with thousands upon thousands of dollars of damage having been done to the establishment, said a New York Family Lawyer. And right next door is your former wife! In a movie this is the part where hilarity would ensue but in real life Sheen ended up having the cops called on him, being booked for several crimes, and becoming late night television fodder.

Perhaps worst of all was the fact that not only was his former wife right across the hall but so too were his children, noted a New York Family Lawyer. Sheen and his ex-wife, Denis Richards, had taken their kids to a local museum where the four of them took in the sights and learned a bit of history. It capped off what was said to be a lovely weekend in New York City, reports a New York Family Lawyer. Richards admits that she did bring Sheen back to his hotel room but refuses to comment further. She notes that this is all very public and that her children can see and hear many of these details and she is doing whatever she can to protect them.

Sheen and Richards had a very public and somewhat nasty divorce, one that was often times fought in public and clearly caused pain to all involved.

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A 57-year-old Nevada woman, formerly of New Jersey, was arrested on suspicion of abducting her daughter in the middle of a custody suit, all the way back in 1984, sources told a New York Family Lawyer.

The woman, who was living in Incline Village, Nevada, was arrested and accused of fleeing a courthouse in Somerville, New Jersey with her daughter who was then six at the time, on August 23, 1984. The girl’s father had full custody of the girl back then, New Jersey prosecutors told a New York Family Lawyer. On June 28, 1985, the mother was to appear for arraignment on charges of interference with custody and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Matters changed in 2010, when the girl, now 32 years old, attempted to change her name in order to get a marriage license in Washoe County, prosecutors told a New York Family Lawyer. A background check on the woman under her own name revealed a listing in the National Information Crime Center as a missing child from New Jersey.

A number of airlines in Europe and Asia have stopped seating unaccompanied minors next to adults after several allegations of sexual abuse. Airline pilots and safety experts believe that is not the best idea, however, since it may have left children open to severe injury.

Millions of children fly alone each year, especially as more and more people travel by air. Families, split by divorce, often live miles apart. New York Family Lawyers have noticed many lawsuits arising from seating problems, especially in the United States, but the airline industry has yet to come to a consensus on the matter. As one example, two children on a domestic Air France flight were unable to reach their oxygen masks when the plane cabin suddenly depressurized, New York Family Lawyers have learned.

The children, an 8-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, were sobbing, seated in separate window seats of the plane and the aisle seats were empty. A flight attendant eventually helped the children and the plane landed safely in Paris 30 minutes later.

Now that a teen mother and her boyfriend has been convicted of duct-taping her 2-year-old son to a wall, the photos that started the case have been revealed, a New York Family Lawyer reports. The child was removed from his mother’s custody, but has since been returned to her. She has an 18-year-old woman who has admitted to using drugs.

At the time of the abuse, she was only 17 and received 10 days in jail and 2 years of probation for the crime, while her 19-year-old boyfriend was sentenced to three to five years for child abuse and another 12 to 24 months for felony possession of stolen firearms.

While under the influence of drugs, the mother held the child in place, while the boyfriend taped him to the wall of their home, authorities told a New York Family Lawyer. The photographs depict the boy taped by his wrists to the wall. There is also one with his smiling mother holding the boy, his hands wrapped up in tape, and another with the boy’s sippy cup taped to a wall, just out of reach. He is crying as he tries to grab the cup.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s marriage to Corina Villaraigosa has come to an official end, a court spokesman told a New York Family Lawyer.

Villaraigosa’s wife, Corina Villaraigosa, filed for divorce in June of 2007, stating there were “irreconcilable differences” between them. She initiated the dissolution of their 20-year marriage after Villaraigosa publicly claimed he was responsible for their separation, citing a “personal sense of failure”, sources told a New York Family Lawyer.

There had been many rumors about the status of the marriage, in the months preceding the divorce announcement. Once the divorce was announced, New York Family Lawyers discovered the mayor had been dating a former Telemundo anchor. They had been in the relationship, at that time, for at least 18 months. He acknowledged the relationship and stated, “I take full responsibility for my actions.”

It was once a statistical fact that living together before marriage was more likely to result in divorce. Still, it is more common than ever for couples to live together without being married. Have matters changed?

The times have certainly changed. In the late 70s, about one-third of people lived together before getting married. Most of these were people who lived less traditional lives, which made them more prone to divorce, a sociologist said to a New York Family Lawyer. The stigma against what was once called “living in sin” has faded, though some socially religious groups still frown upon it. Now, two-thirds of American marriages start as cohabitation.

Motivations may have also changed. Free love was a motivation in the 70s. Today, it may be financial reasons that prompt a couple to live together. “What really stood out was the change in unemployment characteristics,” a family demographer for the U.S. Census told a New York Family Lawyer. In 2008, 59 percent of cohabitating couples said both partners were employed. It was only 49 percent just two years later.

Census data has revealed some interesting facts, according to New York Family Lawyers. Couples with sons are less likely to split up, unmarried pregnant couples are more likely to quickly get married if the child is going to be a boy and divorced mothers of boys are more likely marry again and stay remarried.

This does not mean, of course, that daughters wreck marriage, New York Family Lawyers are quick to say. Research from 2003 shows that couples with a first-born girl were about 5 percent more likely to divorce than when the parents had a son born first. Three daughters can double that to 10 percent.

The research comes from more than 3 million adults in U.S. Census data, which means the data is probably not just some statistical anomaly. That leaves the question of why this trend is so. Some believe it may be that many don’t want to raise boys in a fatherless home. Or it may be that mothers are far more willing to leave a bad marriage because the presence of a daughter empowers the mother.

It’s true that there’s no estate tax in 2010, so anyone who stands to inherit in that year will not lose any money to that, no matter how much the sum might be. Unfortunately, it might be offset by a change in capital gains tax when it comes to selling those inherited things, says a New York Family Lawyer.

Before 2010, an heir could sell inherited property what is known as a stepped-up basis, according to New York Family Lawyers. This means that capital gains would be assessed based upon the value of the asset when the owner died, not what the original owner bought it for. So, if someone bought a classic car when it was new for $5,000, but that car is now worth $75,000, the value of the car would be stepped up to $75,000. So, if the heirs sold the car for $75,000, in 2009, there would be no capital gains tax.

Lawmakers decided that would be too much money lost, so in place of the repealed estate tax, heirs had to pay capital gains on a carry-over basis. This means that same car would have $70,000 dollars eligible to capital gains tax, says a New York Family Lawyer. This could be a problem for people who inherit small businesses, who may have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell that business, even when it falls below the 2009 threshold where estate taxes normally would have been paid.