PJM: The issue of family court corruption is finally getting the attention it deserves thanks to some high-profile celebrities who have been speaking out about the outrageous violations of civil rights and due process that happened to them in family courts. The most recent is Southern Charm’s Kathryn Dennis who says her parental rights have been stripped in favor of a known abuser, ex-boyfriend Thomas Ravenel. Dennis posted on Instagram a familiar sentiment among parents destroyed by family courts.
It can be exhausting to live two lives: one for your children and for the world (everything is fine) and the other, where you are beaten down by the family court system. We see you and we stand with you. You are not alone.
Ravenel is a known convicted criminal, according to Post and Currier.
Ravenel served as state treasurer in 2007 but resigned when he was indicted on a federal charge of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. He was sentenced to 10 months behind bars in that case.
He also was arrested and pled guilty to assaulting his nanny.
Thomas Ravenel, the former state treasurer and “Southern Charm” reality TV star, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge in connection with an attack on his former nanny, and will donate thousands to support other victims.
While Dennis has had her own problems with substance abuse, she sought treatment and has not been arrested or convicted of any violent crimes, unlike Ravenel. Yet the court recently stripped Dennis of her parental rights and she is only allowed to see her children on supervised visitation. Ravenel has been given full custody of the couple’s children and permission to move them over 100 miles away from their mother.
The case is under seal and Ravenel’s lawyer says the details of why the judge did this are a secret. The secrecy of family courts is one of the major stumbling blocks to cleaning up corruption. If the press cannot access the cases, court insiders and corrupt judges can do whatever they want. And a regular family without access to Hollywood money cannot file appeals because they are cost-prohibitive. MORE
This has been going on for decades. If I had to guess, the court found “parental alienation” in which mother and/or her family members couldn’t or wouldn’t stop badmouthing father, and psych bottom feeders who make money in the court system opined that the mother had all kinds of mental issues.
People with money are abused more. Whatever it takes for the psychs and “helping professionals” to stir up the most conflict possible. The lawyers — with whom the psychs have referral relationships both ways — also get into the act, making money or just conflicted because a bad psych in one case is on their client’s side in another and besides, they’re all buddies.
What has caused this isn’t “corruption” per se but changes in the laws since the early 1990s in which the psychs flooded into the family court system and pushed for joint custody, which is frequently unworkable, especially when one of the parents (it only takes one) is abusive or just mental. Where the parents have money, and have any kind of emotional issues with one or the other that make them easy targets to stir up, and cannot manage one of those pretend stay-friends divorces, the bottom feeders stir the pot and do what they can to make it all worse.
Basically anything which involves judges and lawyers is corrupt – the profession is built upon the ability to dissimulate and deceive.
Throw in a couple of neurotic therapists and you get a sort of Satanic Carnival.
The children are marred for life and the parents are impoverished to support the malefactors – all under the lie of “law.”
izlamo delenda est …
Here in Maine whatever women say is believed.
Men are automatically guilty.
My son’s ex accused him of beating her while pregnant. We saw the argument. She beat him. He had bruises everywhere. Did the cops investigate?
Nope. Just believed the crazy girl.
It’s far worse than I can write here and too long.
We didn’t see our grandson for 2 yrs.
We see him every other week because visits still have to be supervised with my son.
The judges don’t read the cases for the most part and just do what the woman’s lawyer says.
The system is a mess.
Judges are very often jerks.
In criminal court too. I say that not from court experience but from a courthouse remodel my husband’s company was involved with.
My wife used to like that show until they loaded it up with Muslims and minorites who have nothing to do with Southern Charm. Ravenel is a corrupt scumbag.
Reality TV Star?
I’m sure she is a real angel as well…
Well, here in Georgia, it doesn’t matter what the father does. He can never pay a dime to support his child, be on drugs, be in a drug court program, have multiple sanctions, and the judge and guardian ad litem all say it’s bad for the child not to have full visitation with dear old dad, even letting him pick up the child, drive him around, and spend the night. All of the financial burdens and raising of the child fall on the mom. And Lord knows what would happen to her if SHE didn’t follow all of the court’s directives. And then they say “we’re doing it for the children.”