Father Faces Trial for Protecting His Son

Father refuses to return son to unstable mother. Even though court agrees and awards him custody, the state is still prosecuting him for felony custodial interference and denying him access to counsel.

LEAGUE CITY, TX, October 8, 2003. Do you know where your child is? Its a good bet that you know that he or she is in school, at home, or playing with friends in the neighborhood. Now imagine that you had no contact with your child for weeks or even months. Imagine that you have heard rumors about the child living in a truck and moving from town to town thousands of miles away, missing school, and in the company of strangers. What would you do?

This is the dilemma faced by Jerid Freedland, a Texas resident. His six year old son Trevor (who lived in Kentucky and Illinois with his Mother) was moved around by his Mother who rarely kept the same address for more than a few weeks. Even her own family couldnt find her for months at a time. Jerid petitioned the court system in Kentucky to award him primary custody, but while he waited for a court case, he could not be sure if Trevor was safe. The final result? Jerid was awarded primary custody, and also charged with a felony and threatened with jail time.

Jerid traveled to Kentucky and picked up Trevor for spring break from Trevors grandfathers house. The terms of the joint custody agreement allowed Jerid to have Trevor for spring break. At this time, Jerid still did not know where the child was actually living or in what conditions. He did know that Trevor had been out of school for most of the week before spring break, for no apparent reason. When spring break was over, Jerid could not bring himself to return Trevor to an unknown situation. Hed have to leave the child at the grandfathers house and had no idea what would become of him afterwards.

Instead, Jerid enrolled Trevor in a local school. Trevor loved Texas and did well in school. However, after several weeks, his Mother had filed custodial interference charges with the Kentucky authorities. The Crittenden county prosecutor-a Mr. Alan Stout-agreed with Jerids attorney that if Jerid would return the child, they would not file charges. Although it broke his heart, Jerid sent Trevor back to an unknown situation. Although Jerid should have got Trevor for the summer, he could not find out where he was and his ex-wife would not release Trevor.

Eventually, that court date came and the judge did, in fact, award him primary custody of Trevor. The judge found that Jerids ex-wife was ... living an unstable life situation. [She] has had multiple addresses in the last few years...[with her] family having limited ability to contact her." The court also found that she had not enrolled the child in school and awarded Jerid primary custody along with child support from his ex-wife.

However, before the court convened, Jerid was arrested on the custodial interference charges. Mr. Stouts agreement that returning Trevor would avoid charges was not, in fact, the case. Although Kentucky law states that voluntarily returning the child reduces custodial interference to a misdemeanor, Mr. Stouts office pressed it as a class D felony. The family court judge that awarded Trevor to Jerid was so unimpressed with the charge that he released Jerid on a $4 bond. However, the prosecutor was unwilling to drop the charge.

Trevor continues to do well in Texas school, but his dad now has a felony charge hanging over his head. Having exhausted his resources in the custody battle, Jerid is also without counsel. The Kentucky courts have told him he is not entitled to a public defender until after he goes to trial (this is expressly forbidden by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v Wainwright and Kentucky law KSR31.110). Jerid says, Now Im at the mercy of an out of state system that has already mislead me once. They agree he was in a bad situation, but apparently punishing me is more important than my sons welfare."

Jerid will be arraigned in the 5th district court of Kentucky on October 16, 2003. He hopes the court will see fit to appoint him counsel at that time.

This is an interesting counterpoint to the Utah Jensen case, where the state reduced custodial interference charges against the parents to a misdemeanor. In this case, though, the parents were trying to stop the child from receiving chemotherapy -- more parents are likely to sympathize with Jerids dilemma.