Father’s Rights Case: Jonathan Davis

Jeanette Medleycott-Lopez of Poodle Lane in Holly Ridge, the founder of Mama J’s Helping Hand in Sneads Ferry, also said that after the child was taken from her father’s Hubert home on May 22, the girl was being put up for adoption.

The father also spoke out about a summer of confusion and unexplained separation from his child. She and her dad, Jonathan Davis, were at his family’s Hubert home on Tuesday night, continuing to recover from her absence. The girl was smiling as she frequented the porch and vied for her dad’s attention, which he promised would be hers shortly after the interview.

Davis on Tuesday declined to officially comment. But on Thursday, he said that Medleycott-Lopez had come to his front door on May 22 and told him she was with Onslow County Department of Social Services and provided a card from that agency.

“That’s how I got in contact with DSS in the first place,” Davis said. “I’ve been in contact with DSS for a while now.”

Davis said the Department of Social Services helped him get his child back.

“I was under the impression that they took her,” Davis said of that agency. “So I went and got my daughter back.”

Davis said he and his child had been reunited for “a couple weeks” but did not recall the exact date.

Medleycott-Lopez was charged Sept. 26 by Onslow County Sheriff’s Office with misdemeanor impersonation of law enforcement and abduction of children.

She is accused of taking the child from Davis, who was “lawfully entitled to the child’s custody and care,” presenting herself as a DSS worker, and Guardian Ad Litem court advocate for children, according to warrants.

Medleycott-Lopez is not a Guardian Ad Litem volunteer advocate, an agency official confirmed in previous Daily News reports.

Onslow County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday issued a press release about the investigation, accusing Lopez of “representing herself as an agent with Onslow County DSS.”

Initially, the sheriff’s office received a report from DSS in the case.

“The investigation revealed that Lopez went to the home of Jonathan Davis and represented herself as an employee of the DSS,” according to the release. “Lopez took custody (of the child) and placed the child with a non-relative family.”

Medleycott-Lopez then allegedly removed the child from that family and placed her with another non-relative home, according to the release.

At an undisclosed time, Medleycott-Lopez approached Davis with adoption paperwork and tried to begin the adoption process, according to the release.

“Davis later learned that Lopez was not an employee of the DSS and reported her actions to the DSS,” according to the release.

Substantial portions of state laws governing the adoption process are directed to “protect biological parents from ill-advised decisions to relinquish a child or consent to the child’s adoption … to discourage unlawful trafficking in minors and other unlawful placement activities,” according to N.C. General Statutes.

Medleycott-Lopez said she never impersonated a social worker or member of DSS and was responding to requests by a “young mother” for help from Mama J’s Helping Hand.

“She said she feared for the safety of her oldest child,” Medleycott-Lopez said. “I told her we would try to help but we would have to call Child Protective Services. She agreed and the mother and I went to the father’s house. I told the father I was with Mama J’s Helping Hands, gave him my card with the Mama J’s information on it and explained we were there to have the child returned to her mother. After talking with him, he turned the child over to her mother and we returned to Sneads Ferry.”

She said she then called Child Protective Services and “turned the matter over to them.

“I truly do not understand why I have been charged with these crimes,” she said. “… This is a huge misunderstanding.”

She said she was trying to help the mother give the girl, and possibly another child, to Child Protective Services’ custody because the mother “could not care for them. CPS was at my office and CPS placed them that day with a family, not I.”

Medleycott-Lopez’s next scheduled date in Onslow County District Court is Oct. 20, according to information from N.C. Court System’s website.

She said Mama J’s Helping hand continues remodeling work as scheduled and noted the foundation’s 5K run had been canceled prior to her arrest.

“Mama J’s has not been affected because we serve so many people in need and the people that know me, that really know me, know that I’m not capable of this and that there is so much more to the story and it will come out,” she said.”