The "almost" criminal

Saturday November 29, 2008
L returned in March with a vengeance demanding to see A'ilana. Apparently he didn't realize there was a warrant. So, the lawyer/girlfriend found a criminal defense attorney and a family attorney to work with him. He turned himself in and was released on bail. During his short stay in the county jail, I got a temporary restraining order. Two weeks later, with a different lawyer in tow, I went to court for what was supposed to be a slam-dunk. The judge, even after hearing the message, didn’t see it that way and denied my request for a permanent order.

Fast Forward to June. There we were in court with the same judge who denied me a protection order and a jury who hears the tape of his message and, guess what? He was found guilty of violating my daughter’s protection order. He was put an a year’s probation and ordered to attend parenting and domestic violence classes. We were so happy about this result for about 2 weeks until we learned he had a motion to appeal the verdict. The motion was accepted, so he isn’t on probation and doesn’t have to take classes. The reason they are so bent on overturning the conviction is because “any violation of the protection order is a deportable offense.” We don’t know where it stands. He had his day before the appellate judge, but we haven’t been told what the outcome is.