In battles for custody, children often pawns

Two psychologists claimed that this man was not a danger to his children. The mother's credibility was questioned and she was not listened to.

This blogger does NOT agree with David L. Levy, more professionals and more facilities are not needed as they cannot judge things accurately anyway. Mothers need to be listened to in court. No one likes to be in court and the myths of false allegations is a load of crap. These fatalities are an epidemic because mothers and children are not being protected. In these situations, sole custody and protection are the answer, not years of re-victimization in court.


Experts say case of death of three youths exhibits familiar patterns
by Agnes Jasinski Staff Writer

As police and the courts attempt to determine whether anything could have been done to prevent Mark Castillo from allegedly drowning his three young children in a Baltimore hotel bathtub a little more than a week ago, child and domestic violence experts disagree on where blame, if any, falls in the tragedy.

‘‘We know many victims are frustrated, and feel they’re not being heard. ... People didn’t listen to this woman,” said Michaele Cohen, the executive director of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Abuse.

Castillo, 41, of Rockville was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and a series of first-degree child abuse and assault charges in the March 29 deaths of his children Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2. His preliminary hearing in Baltimore is set for April 29.

The children, who lived with their mother, Amy Castillo, in Silver Spring, were victims of a lengthy custody battle that some say showed patterns of behavior found in domestic violence cases.

‘‘Power and control are the issues in domestic violence. ... In this case, [Mark Castillo] did say ... that if he just kills the children and not her, it would be harder on her,” said Hannah Sassoon, the county’s domestic violence coordinator with the sheriff’s office, referring to a protective order petition filed in court by Amy Castillo. The sheriff’s office serves protective orders.

‘‘When people leave a relationship, the children become another way to control the partner,” Sassoon said.

A fatality review team of social workers and representatives from police and the courts is looking at whether the incident was foreseeable, Sassoon said. The process is standard in cases in which children or adults who are the victims of domestic violence are killed.

The Montgomery County team, chaired by Laura Chase, also supervisor of the Family Violence Unit in the county state’s attorney’s office, has reviewed eight cases dating back to 2000 since its inception about a year ago. The group meets monthly to look at whether there were any gaps in response, Chase said, and to work out ways of keeping victims of domestic violence ‘‘from ultimately becoming another statistic.”

Chase said she did not know how long a review of the Castillo case would take.

Lt. Paul Starks, a spokesman for Montgomery County Police, said the department was acting ‘‘beyond our own protocol” when officers visited Mark Castillo’s home after Amy Castillo called police to report her husband was late in returning the children after his scheduled visitation. Starks said the officer who responded was new and also contacted his sergeant. ‘‘He wanted to make sure he was doing everything he should.”

Police are limited to enforcing orders from the court, Starks said, and children may be kept up to 48 hours past visitation times before parents are fined or found to be in contempt of court.

‘‘They were allowed to be with him that day. ... Two hours late, it’s hard for us to write a missing person’s report,” Starks said. ‘‘But [Amy Castillo] knew a lot more than the police did. ... As it turns out, she was absolutely right in being concerned.”

The value, flaws of protective orders

Amy Castillo was given a temporary protective order against her husband in December 2006. In that petition, she wrote that Mark Castillo had threatened that ‘‘the worst thing he could do to me would be to kill the children and not me, so I could live without them.”

But her request for a permanent order, which would have been valid for up to a year, was rejected Jan. 10, 2007, by Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr., who according to court documents cited a lack of evidence of abuses alleged by Amy Castillo. Such orders, specific to each case, can forbid the person charged with abuse from contacting victims or visiting their home or work.

First-time violators of protective orders are given up to 90 days in jail, fined $1,000, or both, Chase said. The state’s attorney’s office has two legal assistants who work primarily on cases involving protective order violations, she said.

Judges who issue protective orders must be prepared to defend that action with evidence of an imminent fear of abuse, often measured by prior physical abuse, said retired Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Femia, who still serves part-time.

In the Castillo case, Dugan’s decision was weighted heavily on findings by social workers and psychologists that Mark Castillo was not a threat to his children, despite his wife’s claims. Psychotherapist Mark Hirschfeld evaluated Mark Castillo in June 2007, and agreed with a report by psychologist C. David Missar earlier that year that Mark Castillo posed no threat to his children, court papers say. Mark Castillo had received visitation rights following the couple’s divorce in February.

Femia said every judge has been in a situation in which facts presented are insufficient to rule on the side of the petitioner. ‘‘The truth of the matter is, even if we give you a protective order, it’s a piece of paper,” Femia said.

Thomas DeGonia, a former county assistant state’s attorney who now works for Washington, D.C.-based Venable Law Firm, said cases without ‘‘independent evidence to corroborate,” such as witnesses, make judges’ decisions even more difficult.

Cohen of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Abuse said legislation that would lower the standard for proving an ‘‘imminent threat” in the issuance of the orders would make them more effective. But the argument that they did little to dissuade domestic violence is inappropriate, she said.

‘‘Nothing is a guarantee, no matter what you do,” she said.

Steps toward prevention

David L. Levy, the chief executive of the Children’s Rights Council, a Landover-based nonprofit that works to assure continuing contact between children and both parents in divorces, said in cases of alleged abuse, centers providing supervised visitation can ease some of the tension in custody battles.

Such centers currently operate in Clinton and Hyattsville, both run by the Children’s Rights Council, and in Kensington, run by the county’s Family Trauma Services. Judges must order supervised visitation, Levy said.

Cohen said taking all threats more seriously, both through legislation and court action, is important.

‘‘We’d like to see more training of the judges, the core personnel and the evaluators to look for the subtleties, and to recognize power and control, which is what this is all about,” she said. ‘‘Abusers can be very calculating, charming, likeable. ... It’s not always recognized as domestic violence by anybody.”