Florida Husband marries his first wife in 1960.

In the 1980s, Husband marries his second wife.

In 2000, Husband divorces his second wife.

And marries his third wife, the lawyer who represented him in his divorce from his second wife.

Husband pleads guilty to federal bank fraud charges and is sentenced to twenty-seven months’ incarceration.

Then it is learned that Husband never divorced his first wife.

Husband pleads no contest to bigamy charges.

Husband’s sentence for the bigamy charges?

In a sense, nothing.

His sentence for bigamy will run concurrently with his bank fraud sentence.

One principle of our legal system is that the punishment should fit the crime …

Read more in this Times of the Internet article: Con man pleads no contest to bigamy.

Mother and Father live in Ireland with Son.

Mother and Father break up.

Mother allegedly abducts Son to Britain.

Father brings an application for Son’s return to Ireland under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Father seeks guardianship of Son in an Irish Court.

A British Court orders that Mother’s and Son’s passports be deposited into Court pending further order of the Court at a hearing next month.

A spokesman for the Irish Family Breakdown Support Services notes that Ireland is in need of new laws to strengthen the legal rights of unmarried fathers in Ireland.

In the last year, Ireland has seen a twenty-five percent uptake in parental abduction cases.

Read more in this Irish Independent article: Father fights for return of son (5).

How do massive child welfare agencies make decisions in children’s best interests – and keep track of them?

Like so many other people and entities, they use software to assist them.

A California “social enterprise management software” company and the California-based Children’s Research Center, a nonprofit social research organization, have announced a “partnership” with the goal of implementing the Children’s Research Center’s operating process into the software company’s software package.

It is anticipated that the software will facilitate better caseworker decision-making and lead to better outcomes for kids.

Read more in this Wall Street Journal MarketWatch press release: Partnership Integrates Evidence-based Assessment Tools with Leading COTS Child Welfare Solution to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families.

An Illinois police force reports being summoned to people’s homes on domestic disputes twice as frequently this year as last.

The prosecutor’s office there similarly reports prosecuting twice as many misdemeanor domestic violence cases (less serious assaults and violations of orders of protection) now as in the past.

The reason?

The weak economy. Loss of jobs. More time at home. More stress. Less money.

Twenty-four percent more people have been availing themselves of services from shelters, and shelters have been full every night.

Law enforcement suggests that many of the incidents occur on a Friday, because that is a common payday, the beginning of the weekend and people drink over the weeked.

Police officers try to defuse tensions, often suggesting that one of the disputants leave for the night.

Read more in this Elburn [IL] Herald article: Domestic dispute reports on the rise.

Sons live primarily with Australian Father.

Swedish Mother has two court-ordered visits with Sons per year in accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Sons advise Father that Mother does not intend to return Sons to Father in Australia.

Sons go to Sweden for their most recent visitation.

Sons do not return on schedule.

Now the Australian Family Court has prohibited any further contact between Sons and Mother.

Unfortunately, that is not very helpful at this point.

Australia issues an arrest warrant for Mother and alerts Interpol of the incident.

From January to October, 121 Australian children were abducted from Australia.

Read more in this [Australian] Age article: Missing in Sweden: Melbourne father’s dash to find sons and this [Australian] Age article: Man looks for missing sons in Sweden.

Child abuse researchers urge more study to improve diagnostic success.

Child abuse can be difficult to detect. The cost of missing it is high to the unaided child victim.

But the cost of mistaken-diagnoses is also high to those wrongly accused or jailed, and those wrongly ostracized.

Diagnostic tools for child abuse include:

1. A physical examination
2. A radiological survey
3. Caregiver’s report of the accident
4. Reports of the scene from those present soon after the injury occurred
5. History from other observers

Additional indicators of child abuse include:

• caregivers’ changing stories
• injuries appear unrelated to explanations for them
• confessions
• court cases finding child abuse
• case meetings acknowledging child abuse

Read more in this BrainBlogger article: Diagnosing Child Abuse.

Idaho Father and Mother get pregnant. Father and Mother get engaged.

Six months into the pregnancy, Mother calls the engagement off, breaks up with Father and cuts Father out of her life completely.

Father claims to contact state department of health and welfare to find out how to protect his rights to his child. They supposedly tell him he must wait until baby is born.

Next thing Father knows, he hears Mother’s baby has been adopted. Without a word to him.

Father took his case all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court. But he lost.

Because he didn’t timely register with Idaho’s Putative Father Registry. Because he says he didn’t know about it.

A number of states, including Florida, now have a putative father registry scheme and a requirement to timely register with it to assert parental rights and block any adoption.

Despite Father’s wishes, Mother says it was best for the baby to put it up for adoption.

Read more in this [Pocatello, ID] KPVI TV 6 news article: Man Loses Son in Adoption Without His Consent.

A Japanese man divorces his wife without warning.

The Wife is enraged – and kills him … sort of.

The marriage and divorce took place in a Korean video game which the Japanese man and woman both played in online.

The murder was virtual, of the character the man played online. The real woman, a piano teacher, logged in as the man and, using his identity, killed off his character.

So, it was all just a game … or was it?

Japanese authorities have arrested the woman – for illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

A sobering reality.

Read more in this BBC [UK] news article: Woman in jail over virtual murder and this San Diego Tribune article: ‘Virtual murder’ in online game lands Japanese woman in jail.

Today is National Adoption Day. In fact, the entire month of November is National Adoption Month.

As part of his legacy, an adoptee’s foundation offers a Foster Care Adoption Awareness Toolkit to agencies, civic and religous groups, corporations, teachers and others.

The kit promotes adoption of children in foster care and publicizes the need for adoptive families for well over 100,000 abandoned, abused or neglected children. The kit also addresses myths about adopting kids out of foster care.

The adoptee behind the Foundation is the late Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s restaurants. And the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is the only foundation dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption.

Read more in this Wall Street Journal Market Watch press release: Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Offers Free Foster Care Adoption Awareness Toolkits

Police showed up at a home where a Mother and Father were engaged in a physical fight over a custody dispute.

The police informed both parents that their disagreement would have to be resolved in court, which is another way of saying that law enforcement personnel can’t settle things between them.

But the pair were intent on their own alternative means of resolving their dispute.

Just minutes later, the police were summoned to a scene on the road where the same couple were now duking it out in the outdoors.

Both exhibited fresh injuries.

Police arrested both parents and charged them both with assault.

Mother had to post bail to get out of jail but not Father.

The whereabouts and care of the children over whom all this fighting was taking place did not come up at all.

Read more in this [Delmarva, MD] WBOC 16 TV News article: Pair Arrested for Fighting in Road.