This
story started with a father who had had custody of his first two children since
1991 and who cared for his third child by the same mother until paternity was
proved on said child. Upon establishing paternity, the court immediately
granted him custody and ordered the child's name to be changed to the father's
last name. This happened in the summer of 97. The mother had voluntarily signed
custody of the first two children over to the father in court in 1991 and
agreed to allow the children’s last names to be changed to the father’s last
name. The third child was conceived on
the same day of this court hearing when the mother and father had a trist The mother at
the time was in a relationship with another for whom she had left the children
and the father to be with. The mother
and father reconciled and resumed their relationship until after the third
child was born. However, the mother
shortly after the child’s birth again left the children, including her oldest
child, who didn’t belong to the father of the other three children, but who he
had raised as his child since she was six months old, and the father at
beginning of the Fall of 1992. The
father made one last attempt at final reconciliation with the mother, but it
only lasted for about a year before the mother again abandoned the family,
including her other child, for the last and final time in January of 1994. The mother made no attempt at contacting the
children until she was forced into watching the children with a family
emergency in which the brother to the father, had to be rushed to a hospital
with a temperature of 106.2, and their mother called her to come and stay with
the children until their father returned from work. Because the father didn’t have legal
guardianship of her child he could not make any decisions which parents or
guardians of children have to make legally.
Nevertheless, the mother had to be forced into taking her child with her
at the behest of the police. The mother
rarely if ever exercised her right to visitation for nearly a year at which
time the father decided to move South.
When the father's mother and brother decided to make a trip to visit the
children, they took their (the children's) half-sister with them and asked
their mother if she wanted to go along, but she declined. The father returned to Indiana shortly
thereafter with the children. But, as he
could not find work, he decided to return to the South. It was at this time that the mother finally
decided to exercise her right to visitation. The mother on a supposed pro bono
basis enlisted the help of the law firm of Funk and Foster (prominent in Lake
County Indiana) in 95. You will understand why I say supposed after you have
followed the link of the third footnote and read the article. Mr. Funk could never beat the father in court
and the father could always cite cases to thwart the efforts of Funk and judge or
referee who might be at the any one of numerous hearings to take custody of his
children away from him.[1]
Note: the hearings were not initially about custody, but rather visitation for
the mother and child support for the father, however, it became a custody
hearing the single time the father was unable to make it to court. When all else failed, a mysterious call went
in to Child Protective Services that the children were being neglected and
abused and not attending school. The father had registered for home school in
Feb. of 98 with the Indiana Department of Education and had a home school
number.[2] A
principal in Whiting had advised him to do so after several GALS and CASA's had been appointed who could at any point take the
children into protective custody. Let me add that their three home studies had
proved that the father was providing a good home for them. Funk used many
delaying tactics, mostly especially, continuances to prolong the case.[3]
The mother on each occasion, was granted continuance after continuance, while
the father appeared in court on each occasion. Before the October 23, 98
hearing, the father requested in written form delivered by fax to his attorney
a request for a continuance. Apparently the lawyer didn't adhere to this
request because in an emergency hearing on Dec.11 the referee Tavitas issued a bench warrant for the father's arrest
because of failure to appear in court [4]and
for not placing the children back in an Indiana school. The mother was then
granted temporary custody for this reason. Called, “for the best interest of
the children”. This is a mother who is believed to be an illicit drug user and
who let her then 12 year old daughter take her drug test.[5]
The daughter later told us about this. The results of the test were highly
suspect because the report stated that no drugs either prescribed or illegal
were present, making this particularly questionable, since, by the mother’s own
admittance, she was taking prescription antidepressants. On the Dec.11 date, the father was found to
be in contempt of the court for failure to enroll the children in school and
sentenced to 30 days in jail but could purge this if he enrolled the children
in school within two weeks and ordered the father not to remove the children
from Indiana if he had not already done so. Note: he and the children had
already left the state prior to this ruling.
The judge’s order was unlawful because they were already enrolled in a
legally registered home-school. Would
you endanger your children and obey an unlawful, unconstitutional order or
would you take steps to protect them?
Funny how his lawyer who had brought up the question of Child Protective
Services "ever having investigated him," failed to appear for his
client and instead Mark Gruenhagen that morning filed
a motion to Withdraw appearance on behalf of the father. The court granted the
motion. A further court date was set for Feb.19, 99. Father and children left
the state to remain a family and the father chose to be on the run in order to
protect his children. The family was told that he was charged for kidnapping
the children and that a warrant was issued for his arrest.[6]The
father remained concealed until August 2002 by living with the mother of his
fourth child. As the mother of this child was preparing to relocate back in
Indiana, she allowed the father to make use of her car to find another safe
place for him and his children. The father, upon his return was told by the
mother of the fourth child that the police had already been called and that she
had reported the car stolen and their child kidnapped by him. Therefore, out of
desperation and fear for the safety of the three children who might be given
over to their mother, he fled in her car with all four children. His children.
There is no custody order on the fourth child. We have been told that the
mother of a child born out of wedlock automatically has legal custody of the
child. This is the codified law in Indiana as well as the state of Tennessee
where the most recent incident occurred.[7]
However, if they had been married
and separated or divorced, a court hearing would be necessary to determine
custody of the child. I assert that these laws violate the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments rights of due process and equal protection respectively.
The father was under the false assumption that the parent who has physical
custody of the child at the time has legal custody until a custody decree is
declared in a court of law. This is due to the fact that his brother was
in a similar situation in the state of Alabama, where the child was born out of
wedlock in Indiana, but the father obtained physical custody until he was
awarded legal custody by the state of Alabama. Ignorance of the law that
is not well known or publicized should be a defense. Now, the father of
the fourth child is being sought by Tennessee authorities facing kidnapping and
auto theft charges. Indiana authorities
in Hammond and Lake County are pushing to add kidnapping charges for the other
three children as well. Father and children remain in hiding as of now,
but it is only a matter of time before the father is captured and children
remanded to the custody of their respective mothers. They are a very poor family with few
resources that are inadequate to mount a credible defense. If not for the
actions of Cordel Funk and unscrupulous Lake County
juvenile officials, the father would not be in the current situation. The
Times (local Northwest Indiana newspaper), as well as, Tennessee media are vilanizing the father as your average run-of-the-mill
kidnapper. The mother of the fourth child has told Tennessee authorities
that she is not sure of the paternity of the child in question. However,
she has held the child out as belonging to the father to friends, family, and
strangers alike. There are numerous
photographs of the child with his father in which his mother in her own
handwriting names this man as the father, his mother as grandmother, his
sisters as aunts, and his brothers as uncles.
Therefore, even if the child is not their blood relative, they were lead
to believe by his mother that he was and is and have loved him as such. If he is not, then his mother has perpetrated
and committed a fraud. This mother has a brother who is well connected to
the mayor of Hammond and the mayor (they were told by a Hammond police
official) is putting pressure on the prosecutors to bring charges against the
father regarding his other three children.
His both disabled mother's and brother's, garage has been broken into in the
past six months six times with their food being stolen on each occasion. The last theft occurred on November 19th. The main suspect of who was seen fleeing from
the previous burglary closely resembles another brother of the last child’s
mother who lives a few houses down from their home. But because of the lighting in their alley,
his mother could not swear with 100% certainty that it was him. The full face
of the suspect was not in view, but the suspect
has a very distinctive head of hair and a peculiar walk. Several times the suspect left behind the
tools he used to break in. The police
have refused to take any of this evidence with them for fingerprint
analysis. The single time that they did
take a tool for fingerprint analysis, they warned the detective away from the
case and have refused to tell them whether or not they identified the
perpetrator based upon the clearly visible fingerprint. This bolsters their
belief that it is the person they suspected.
The detective assigned to the case flat-out refused to question the
suspect and seek a search warrant for his property. They had labeled the food packages so that
they would be readily identifiable. They are refusing to protect them while persecuting this father It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I did a
Web search on Lake County corruption and came across a web site titled Pigcircus.com. I have found that
this father is not the only father who has suffered at the hands of Cordel Funk and the Bonaventura-Miller triad. A credible
source has informed the family that all family members phones have been
wiretapped. This is an incredible feat considering the number of people
in their extended family. We're talking multiple states! They are
treating this case as if the father is a member of Al Qaeda
and his family are accomplices. Consider the influence the fourth child's
maternal uncle has that he can persuade Hammond city officials, Lake County
authorities, local area news media, and Tennessee authorities and media, as
well as, the FBI and America’s Most Wanted in waging this unprecedented
campaign against a father whose only desire is to care for his children in
peace and safety. Let me reiterate that they are an ordinary family with
very many constraints on their resources. If they are unable to afford a
proper legal defense, then corrupt government entities and their cohorts will
succeed in destroying yet another innocent American family. A house
divided shall surely fall. The misinformation that is being disseminated can be
found at www.thetimesonline.com
website in the archives section by inputting the name Alex Kiral
into the search field. More
information on the corrupt politicians who run Lake County Indiana can be found
here LakeCountyHallofShame. Any networking capabilities you as an
individual have within your community that would enable them to gain an adequate
legal team would be of utmost importance and greatly appreciated. Please
donate any funds within your means to help restore justice. An attorney with whom the father spoke with
about the case estimates that the legal fees for a counterclaim for custody is
around $25,000. If we could get 25,000
people to donate a dollar each, we could afford a defense. If you are able and willing to contribute
more funds within your means, I would plead with you to do so. However, if for some reason you’re either
unable or unwilling to do so, I would ask you to at least make everyone you
know aware of this site. This isn’t a
fraudulent Internet scheme. If you
respond to his brother’s e-mail address, he will send you his home address for
verification of his identity. After he receives your response, I will ask my
local bank to help him establish a valid and verifiable trust fund account. I
genuinely believe in this father's love for his children. I am not too proud to beg! I beg of anyone and everyone to help them.
Any assistance you could provide would be helpful. Help them
reunite their family. Please
don’t let corrupt government officials and people connected to them destroy
this family. Please forward this webpage
address to everyone you know, any criminal and family attorneys you may know of, to your member of
Congress, your governor, President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and
any news media outlets in your area and nationally, and any spiritual leaders
who care about family and justice. Your support is important to their family.
Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Do these pictures convey an unhappy
family or endangered children?
Andrew, the
father (left) the brother , Kenneth
(center) Tuesday, Andrew’s first
born (right)
Above photo taken April 14th 2002, Tuesday’s
Birthday
Kimberly,
Andrew’s youngest daughter (left) Mom and Grandma (center), Tuesday again
(right)
Above and below photos taken March 31st 2002, Easter Sunday
Erik, Andrew’s
oldest son (left) Mom and Grandma again (center), Andrew (top right) Alex,
Andrew’s baby boy (right)
[1] Mr. Cordel Funk is a former Lake County IN Bar Association president.
[2] Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, with the only requirement in Indiana is that of Compulsory Attendance. A home school is considered a legal “private school”.
[4] Since the first drafting on this publication, after the father gathered all pertinent documents from the County Clerk's Office, which was an incomplete compilation because the most important custody papers were conveniently, rather suspiciously, missing, it was learned that his lawyer had indeed motioned for and was granted a continuance, making the Judge's subsequent failure to appear warrant contradictory and void.
[5] She was convicted and sentenced for credit card fraud in 1988 and gave birth to my brother’s first child while still incarcerated in 1989 at which point my brother took physical custody of the child. She was reincarcerated on a probation violation for solicitation of prostitution and illicit drug use.
[6] We have since learned that this was in all likelihood a premeditated fabrication. Basically, a ruse to scare the father into fleeing.