I think family court judges view these situations much differently than they did even 5 years ago. The case where the husband murdered his wife in Utah (I don't believe her body was ever located, but LE knows he murdered her), and subsequently blew himself and his two sons to smithereens (excuse the description), during court ordered supervision, and while a DCF worker was on the phone to 911, has changed everything. IME courts are increasingly reluctant to expose children to a clearly established danger of abuse/violence merely because a person asserts their "parental rights."
This motion is going before the very same judge who has heard FD's narcissistic demands over and over and over again. She is also the same judge who has seen FD assert his 5th when asked about what happened to JD. She has seen this playbook before, this pretending to care about the children's interests so that FD gets what he thinks he deserves. How dare anyone keep FD from his children! He, and only he, knows what his best for his possessions, er, children!
Hey dude, you want to show you give a solitary dam* about any of those kids? Start paying a single PENNY toward their support. Quit asserting your 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination, and tell your children the TRUTH about what really happened the day their mother "disappeared". Quit directing your lawyers to disparage the mother of your children as a mentally ill drug addict. Quit your ridiculous charade of "devoted" father while publicly pronouncing your love for the woman who, at minimum, helped hide evidence of their mother's murder!
Of course, if FD actually cared about his children's well-being, he wouldn't have begun to cheat while married to their mother and then demand that she live, in the home her parents paid for, with his mistress. He would not have put the children through the trauma of the last two years of emotional manipulation. He would not have specifically instructed these very same children, the oldest two, to lie in previous matters before this same judge! He would have accepted financial responsibility for their care and would not have committed money laundering to hide assets. He would have not routinely violated court orders put in place to protect the children's well-being.
FD has done nothing to support and protect these children and everything possible to advance his own selfish interests. His conduct is not going to be excused or overlooked by Judge Heller this time around the mulberry bush. IMO, FD and his attorney are, in street slang "smoking crack" if they believe this judge is going to allow FD to inflict further damage on those poor kids. His continued lawyer-sanctioned temper tantrums have been wholly ineffective in advancing his cause (IMO), and serve only to prove how far he will go to get what he thinks he deserves.
