Wednesday Weirdness-Visitation Rights for nonAdopted Child Turns into International Fiasco
Wednesday Weirdness is a recurring theme in which we post something truly weird and wacky in adoption or child welfare.
This case dates back to 2003 but has recently taken on an international twist. It muddies the water even further (if that is possible )for that term “intended parent.” At first the intended parent did not want custody, but then she turned around and sued for it. It escalated from there.
The gist of the story is that Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins started living together in Virginia in 1998.
Approximately in 1999, Lisa Miller was a foster parent, taking in special needs children. Janet and she ran a daycare together, as well. In 2000, Lisa and Janet travelled to Vermont and entered into a civil union, but returned to live in Virginia, a state that did not recognize civil unions/operated under the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). Also in 2000, Lisa decided that she wanted to birth a child. She knew from a previous marriage that she had fertility issues. She saw a fertility doctor in Virginia and went through two rounds of IVF with donor sperm. On the second try in August 2001, she was pregnant.
Janet never accompanied Lisa for any inseminations and her name is not on the birth certificate. Janet never adopted the child, Isabella. Lisa claimed she suffered physical abuse from Janet.
In 2002, they moved to Vermont. In 2003, Lisa left Janet with Isabella and went back to live in Virginia. Lisa claims “[Janet]actually said, “I don’t want to have any responsibility for her – she’s not my child but I just want to see her once in a while.” I agreed to that. You can see her. She did come down to see her once in September and once in November. She would ask to come and see her and then she would call and say she couldn’t come. I filed for civil union dissolution – I sent the paperwork to Vermont because Janet asked me at Thanksgiving time if we could go ahead and do that because she wanted to file for bankruptcy and she couldn’t file for bankruptcy without doing that. I said, “Ok.”
“[S],he visited her twice that year – in 2003. And then the following year was when the litigation started.”
“She did see her a couple of times in 2004 and then I felt very strongly that God, through His word and through the ways that He shows Himself, that he wanted me to stop visitation, and so I did. In, I believe, October 2004. But even up until then, she saw her maybe three times. A court order came down saying that she had court-ordered visitation in 2004 and she still didn’t avail herself of what the court order said she could have.”
“She came probably 3 times that entire year.”
The Vermont court “gave me full physical and legal custody because they said we could not work together. We could not communicate. They gave her liberal visitation at the same time.”
” Judge Crosser – in Virginia, he ruled as well in October but I believe that the final order was in November, though – that he did not see where Vermont had any jurisdiction. He called Janet a friend, not an ex-partner and he said that I was the only mother and I could decide who I allowed my daughter to see. So, that happened – so from October, 2004 to April, 2007 – she did not see Isabella at all.”
[L]litigation continued. I was found in contempt several times. I was fined. I was threatened to transfer custody. That was all in Vermont – we lost at the Virginia appellate court twice and then just recently in June of this year [2008], we lost at the Virginia Supreme Court. ”
2007 Visit
“Well, last year, I allowed visitation starting in April of 2007 and the court ordered that she should see her – it was one week-end and then another weekend and then every other weekend and then eventually she was supposed to have seen her through-out the summer but Janet availed herself of it, rarely. And then, last August she did have her for a full week in Vermont and it was devastating. She wouldn’t allow Isabella to call me – when she would call me, she was crying. She didn’t understand what was going on. She was only 5. So, I knew that I didn’t want any more Vermont visitations. I didn’t have the peace about not giving Virginia visits and it was still in the court systems as well. So, she saw her several more times but she has not seen Isabella since Christmas of last year and that is through Janet’s own doing. She did not come in January or February for her scheduled visit. Instead she contacted my attorney – Janet won’t speak to me. I have asked three times in the last year, can you please just sit down and talk with me. And this is through our attorneys. She won’t answer my phone calls. She won’t answer my letters. She refused to talk with me – even at drop-off and pick-up. ”
“When she came home from the visit, she told me that she watched movies where people killed each other, where there were guns and she also said that Janet left her alone at the lake one day and she was in the water by herself. They don’t have beaches there – they have these lakes that are like beaches. I said, “Well, where was Janet.” And she said, “Janet was up on the beach.” I said, “OK.” She is 5 years old and she can’t swim. Different things like that.
…Last year, Isabella put a comb up to her neck and said she wanted to kill herself after one of the visits. She took a comb and pressed it into her neck and said, “I want to kill myself.” I don’t know where she got that. It was immediately after a visit. Other people have seen huge changes. She also started openly masturbating which is not something that my child has done.
She is 6 now but this started when she was 5 – after visits. The very first time that Janet ever saw Isabella after the two and a half years, her very first over-night visit – the court ordered it and I allowed it because it was in Virginia and she was supposed to have been supervised by her parents, Isabella came home and said, “Mommy, will you please tell Janet that I don’t have to take a bath anymore at her house.” I asked her what happened. She said, “Janet took a bath with me.” I asked her if she had a bathing suit on. “No, Mommy.” She had no clothes on and it totally scared Isabella. She had never seen this woman except once in 2 ½ years and she takes a bath with her.
So, different things like this have happened and God allowed me to go to this same fair that they were going to – I didn’t even know that Isabella was going to be there. And again, these are all visits taking place in Virginia and I was at the fair with my brother and his family and we saw Janet, lose Isabella. She had no clue where Isabella was. Isabella mentioned that at the end of the visit. She said, “I don’t know where she went. She was there one time and then she wasn’t.” I asked her, “Well, where do you think she went?” And my daughter, who was 5 at the time, last year, “Mommy, she must have gone to get a drink because she didn’t have a drink in her hand when she left me and then when she came back she had a drink.” I said, “Oh my goodness.” Thank goodness Isabella had enough sense to stay close.
I don’t know why Janet is fighting so hard for this and Isabella doesn’t want to go.”
[LifeSite News 10/27/08]
2009 to Present
With the assistance of a Mennonite pastor, Lisa and Isabella escaped to Canada and then to Nicaragua where they currently are located.Now those that assisted her are being prosecuted for “aiding and abetting an international parental kidnapping.” The Pastor faces 3 years in prison.
“Ex-lesbian Lisa Miller fled the country after her efforts failed to keep former “civil union” partner Janet Jenkins from having access to her child, Isabella. Jenkins never adopted Isabella and has no biological relationship with the girl, who exhibited signs of emotional trauma following forced visits with Jenkins, according to experts who observed her.
Pastor Kenneth Miller’s attorney, Joshua Autry, is arguing that Lisa Miller (who is not related to Kenneth Miller) had full parental rights at the time the pastor transported her to the Canadian border, and that he was not aware of interfering with any court orders, according to reports by the Associated Press and others.
If convicted, Kenneth Miller could receive up to three years in prison for “aiding and abetting an international parental kidnapping” under U.S. law.
Prosecutors are using e-mails obtained from Google and cell phone records from Verizon Wireless to demonstrate the movements of Lisa Miller and her daughter in 2009, when they say Miller fled to Canada—and ultimately to Nicaragua—with the help of Kenneth Miller and other Mennonites associated with him.
At least two Mennonites who helped in the escape have decided to turn state’s evidence in the trial, testifying against Kenneth Miller, who has not cooperated with the prosecution.
Canadian pastor Ervin Horst has already testified for the prosecution, stating that he drove Lisa and Isabella to the Toronto airport from the Canadian border at Niagra Falls at the behest of Kenneth Miller.
Pastor Timothy “Timo” Miller (also unrelated to Lisa Miller), who also allegedly helped Lisa and Isabella upon their arrival in Nicaragua, has also reportedly agreed to testify in an apparent deal to avoid his own prosecution. A website run by supporters of Timothy Miller, which raised thousands of dollars for his defense, claims the dropping of charges against him is was a “miraculous” event.
According to Kenneth Miller’s Mennonite supporters, the pastor regards homosexual “marriage” as a symptom of the general abandonment of Christian marriage, which “is to be a life-long relationship between one man and one woman.”
While he opposes homosexual “marriage,” he does not see it as the greatest threat to the institution, instead holding that “the greatest threat is a Christianity that has marginalized and compromised Jesus’ teaching on marriage. The teaching of Jesus as understood by the Church for the first 300 years of its history allowed for divorce or separation in rare cases, but remarriage was viewed as adultery.”
He prescribes a “radical repentance within Christianity” as the solution to the problem.
Miller’s supporters explain that “as a follower of Jesus, Ken could not ignore” Lisa Miller’s plea for help to escape Jenkins.
“Ken supported Lisa’s desire to remove herself and Isabella from former relationships which were not in accord with Jesus’ standard. However, he felt only love and compassion for Lisa’s former partner and others involved,” they add.”
Pastor prosecuted for helping girl escape court-imposed lesbian ‘mother’
[LifeSite News 8/10/12 by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman]
Verdict and more information
More information can be found at the following website: MillerCase.org The site indicates that Kenneth Miller was found guilty on Tuesday August 14, 2012 after 2 1/2 hours of jury deliberation.
Welcome to
Recent Comments