This Abuse Can Be Stopped

Please support my brother's fundraiser on Indiegogo.com

Please help stop my brother's ex's abuse at home and in court, and save both the kids and his fatherhood. Her legal team presses on with tax $$. We've run out.

The Sad Story

In the first week that my brother Jon met his wife in 2001, she held a knife to his throat. According to what he says, she continues to call her own children stupid, ugly, dogs, and witches (2010 to Present). She once told my brother, “I have to hurt people when I feel bad so they'll know how I feel.” She has also told him, “I have to fight with you in front of the children so they'll learn how to defend themselves.” (2011) She said, "I will never apologize to you for anything ever again," in 2010 and then reasserted it twice in 2011. One of the saddest ones that I remember was regarding an eviction she was facing in 2011 of her own undoing. She said to the 5-year-old on the phone talking to my brother, "Tell him that you don't love him." I can imagine the fear, hurt, and sadness that little girl must have felt.

Since they met, she has brandished a knife on him twice (2000, 2011) and wished him dead three times (2011). She has shaken, violently forced, and angrily pulled the hair and bodies of her own children, and beaten them with a stick on the bare bottom, and with a remote control about the legs and arms, a total of 9 times - that we know of - over the past several years (2005-2012).

They lived together from 2006 to 2009 but then they separated and Jon came to live with me. She moved in with a landlady that Jon had found for her before they were married. But she was quickly evicted within 3 weeks. She told the children that the eviction was their fault for being too loud. She told Jon it was his fault for screaming at her, but Jon said that he never raised his voice at her, even though she screamed at him every time he picked up the kids.

What is really scary is that she denies doing most of these things.

There are too many stories of neglect to recount all of them here. But you need to know that it's getting worse. This past April, she said, “If you don't stop fighting (they weren't even fighting) I'm going to grab your hands and burn them on the stove! And I don't care if I go to jail!” (April, 2012) The 3-year-old said she has had nightmares from that comment (June, 2012).

My brother just told me that she is sending all three children to see a possibly Muslim counselor, and we are Christians (June to Present, 2012), and she herself continues to scream obscenities and is not getting any help. I can't imagine a 3-year-old or a 5-year-old, or even a 9 year-old, in a room with a stranger getting into their heads for 45 minutes. On top of that, she is not even asking her children what is happening in their counseling, to “respect their privacy.”

She has brought in-fighting and bitterness into our family with calculated lies to particular individuals about others (2010-2011).

In court, she twisted Jon's warnings that her behaviors will end her up in jail or the hospital, turning them into a threat that he, my brother, would put her in jail or the hospital, if she didn't stay married to him. He said that this was her entire testimony, and it got her Order of Protection renewed. Jon had no defense council, and everything he said was met with objections from her team of lawyers for improper wording, until the judge suggested to him that he accept the new OP and come back with his own allegations and a lawyer.

Since then our family has given Jon $7500 in his defense, but our help has run out. However, his ex-wife gets multiple free lawyers without limit, even though she is an illegal alien!

Jon always wanted to help a Hispanic immigrant learn about the country. He earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in Family Development from Northern Illinois University in 1999. Jon has a wonderful loving relationship with his children, and they have become and are becoming early readers, writers and musicians, loving God and their neighbors, because of the Lord's work through him and his talents, and his ex-wife's proud support of the success. But conversely, he said that his ex-wife has said that she hates children in general, even though she loves her own, and never knows what to do with them (2004, 2008, 2009). It is understandable that some people are not "kid" people. But the comment shows how much more valuable Jon's relationship with his children is.

His ex-wife has not recently pulled hair or hit them violently with an object. Jon says that she tends to become a lot nicer whenever she has a court date coming up. On Sept. 6, 2012 the judge will reconsider her “order of protection.” But in the meantime, she continues to try to push Jon away from his children, refusing court-ordered phone time for him (Jan - July, 2012) and unsuccessfully calling DCFS over normal parenting matters (June, 2012). He said that she used to say back in 2011 when he was allowed to talk to her, “I can't force the children to talk to you if they don't want to.” She is also continuing to call her own children stupid, idiot, and other names, and cuss out both their father and her new live-in boyfriend in front of them.

The Lesson

Jon now realizes that it was wrong to marry her after the birth of their first child, and that a sense of obligation does not equate to love. He made a couple mistakes with her that resulted in legal action, but he has repented and has not repeated the errors. Medication was at the root of those problems and that problem has been corrected as well. He knows that love for God through Christ Jesus is first, and that that love manifests itself in a loving marriage. He said he also realized through his association with so many illegal immigrants on his ex-wife's side of the family, that they don't particularly want to become part of our “American family.” They just want to be their own people with jobs and money, he says, They would prefer to go home to work if they could find it. Otherwise they prefer to keep to their own sub-culture within the U.S., but stay apart from "Americans," or in other words, the dominant white culture.

He also believes, based on his education and experience, that his ex-wife developed a pathology from her abusive childhood development. He says that she suffered repeated physical trauma to the head by her own mother, and also emotional deprivation from very rarely hearing the words, “I love you,” from her. She now suffers from constant headaches to loud noise, chronic upper back pain, and emotional detachment. And anger is her primary discipline tool. He says this is based on stories she has related and personal experience with her.

His ex-wife's convictions and legal findings include:

1. Unlawful entry into the United States, banned from the reentry into the U.S. for 5 years, US Immigration and Naturalization Service, 2000
2. Shoplifting, Misdemeanor, 2000
3. Failure to Appear in Court, Misdemeanor, 2000
   
4. Evidence of Child Neglect, DCFS, 2003
   
5. Domestic Battery, Spousal Abuse, Misdemeanor, 2007
6. Shoplifting, Misdemeanor, 2011

Detailed information has been removed to protect her identity.


Jon says that she hasn't been arrested for more of her abuses because he's been trying to keep her out of the System and “take the rap” for her. This way she would not worsen her record and get deported, and devastate the children. He said that he would sometimes actually divert her aggression towards him to get her away from the kids. 

If there were enough money, we would devote:

• $5,000 to a family law lawyer, to end the order of protection lies and illuminate the need for his ex-wife's abuse counseling.
• $2,000 to his ex-wife's counseling, and medication if necessary.
• $2,000 to Jon's daily living expenses and provide a cushion so he can get up to speed economically. He hasn't been able to find and hold a good job because of the depression and constant court appearances.
• $2,000 to give Jon's children some enjoyable things, like park district activities and classes, a trip to the water park, a used trumpet for the fourth-grader, and maybe a weekend vacation to get away from the problems and children's the cramped 1-bedroom apartment with mom and her boyfriend.
• $3000 to an immigration lawyer so she can gain lawful residency, start a life for herself, and not be deported and separated from the children.
• $300 to a Google AdWords campaign to spread the word.
• $1076, 7%, for Indiegogo's fees

For your kind gifts, are prepared to offer the following:

• $100: Links to their daughter Kathy's original songs, and the children's short movie, David, Celeste, and Goliath. (unlimited)
• $500: Personal thank-you cards from the children and Jon. (Unlimited)
• $1000: A bag of homemade “hamburger cookies,” chocolate frosting between 2 vanilla wafers. The kids are so proud that they developed this idea at home with their dad! (10)

The Impact

Jon believes that with more intervention, his ex-wife can stop her abusive and neglectful behaviors. With your help we will accomplish these goals: 

• Save my brother's relationship with his children
• End the court battle, and the falsified "Order of Protection"
• End the mother's abuse toward the children through proper intervention
• Possibly even salt the earth in the court system to help bring fairness to fathers

Other Ways You Can Help


If you can't help financially, please use the Indiegogo tools to share this campaign with others.


Thank you all for your time and compassion. We know it is the Lord working in you, and I pray that He will give back to you 100 times what you give to us.