Mom Jailed for Opposing Reunification with Child-Rapist Father: "Extortion"

Passing Kayden's Law in Colorado Didn't Work

Rachel on her way into jail

A Colorado mother has been jailed for opposing her children reunifying with their violent, rapist father. She calls it extortion to get her to comply with the court-ordered reunification therapy.

This outrage is occurring despite Colorado having passed Kayden’s Law, which is specifically intended to stop this very thing from happening.

Meanwhile, the father, who’s been substantiated for child sexual assault and near-fatal physical abuse by CPS and who is currently charged with seven felony counts of child sexual assault and one misdemeanor child abuse, is roaming around free. The sexual assaults went on for nearly 20 years and includes three daughters, so it is obvious the mere 7 felony counts do not reflect true justice.

This case has gotten more MSM [mainstream media] attention than almost any other Custody Crisis case has—local, state, national, and international. Law & Crime on Youtube and even the esteemed Washington Post covered it.

Unfortunately, they are spreading misinformation about why this is happening and what is really going on in family courts. This horrific case is sensational due to the shocking irony that a a protective mother has been jailed while the indicted serial-child-rapist father is living freely.

What the public needs to be informed of is that this case is not an aberration; it is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. Judges are forcing kids to go with abusive fathers every day in family courts around the world. And loving mothers routinely lose custody and are jailed, or threatened with jail, if they do not get with the pro-father program.

Same story, different mother.

This horrible case, though, provides an excellent example of how Kayden’s Law, and the myriad of other child safety laws, do not work. They will never work and we’ll get into why here.

This is Rachel’s story—a truly horrendous one (amongst so many).

RACHEL’S STORY

Rachel has six children, including two daughters from a previous marriage, who are now adults. Her current ex adopted them and acted as their stepfather growing up. They had four children of their own: a son who is now an adult, a daughter, now 17-years-old, and two sons, now 10 and 13, the subjects of the custody battle.

Not much about the early days of Rachel’s family has been publicly shared, so not much is known until about six years ago.

In 2018, they were on vacation in Costa Rica when their oldest son, 18 at the time, caught his father molesting his younger sister. The father took him to the pool and deliberately held his head under water, nearly drowning him, apparently to instill such terror that he would never tell anyone.

But eventually the son did tell. And so did the daughters. CPS and police were alerted. Child protection and criminal investigations began.

The 17-year-old daughter disclosed that her father had raped her starting when she was 5-years-old and it continued throughout her childhood. The two older daughters disclosed sexual abuse too.

Rachel was granted temporary primary custody but the father is fighting for sole custody of the two younger boys. That is the purpose of the reunification that gets obscured by the media—it’s to facilitate the custody switch.

Rachel brought the children to a child therapist. They told the therapist about the abuse. The child therapist believes and supports them to this day.

In 2022, CPS substantiated the sexual abuse and the near-drowning incident.

Judge Daniel McDonald

Judge Daniel McDonald was fully aware of the CPS findings, the therapist’s conclusions, and the active criminal investigation on the father when he ordered the children to reunify with him. He rested his decision on the fact that the father had not been criminally charged.

The court also notes that no criminal charges have been filed and the Department of Human Services’ finding can be based on statements of the child alone with no corroborative evidence.

LABELING HER A LIAR

Judge McDonald deemed Rachel “not credible”—legal speak for “she’s a liar”. The near-drowning of the oldest son wasn’t relevant, he claimed, because he was not a subject of the custody dispute. Not true.

Judge McDonald claimed the children aren’t credible—liars in a roundabout legal way. He says their “allegations” (rather than more accurately: “disclosures”) are not corroborated. First, judges do not need more than a child/person’s testimony of abuse to make a finding, especially in a civil court with the low >50% burden, and even more so in a family court where the best interests of the child doctrine prevails (or is supposed to). Also, in many criminal courts, there are jury instructions directing jurors they can convict on beyond a reasonable doubt grounds if they believe the child/person is credible.

Besides, the four children, now adults, can corroborate each other, not to mention the CPS substantiation, indictments, and possible/probable conviction could be considered corroboration—by a judge who was actually concerned with the truth and children’s best interests.

The truth is, Judge McDonald is the one who is lying.

He damn well knows the father sexually abused his children and acknowledges he nearly drowned the son when he caught his father molesting her.

But he also knows it is his job to get the kids back under the control of the father—if he wants to continue his climb up the Old Boy ladder. So he lies. He deems Rachel the liar, and orders the kids reunify with the father. Such an easy thing to do with the soil fertile for the “bad or mad” (liar or crazy) women labels.

DISEMPOWERING HER

To add insult to injury, Judge McDonald ordered Rachel pay $1500/month for the reunification “therapy”, which is is not therapy at all but psychological coercion. She requested a real therapist who takes Medicaid but was refused—because the judge needs a corrupt, insider whom he can count on to do the Court’s bidding.

Impoverishing women is one of the tactics used to disempower them and make them easier to control and beat into submission with judicial orders.

When the reunification “therapy” got to the point it was seriously harming the children’s mental health, Rachel objected and resisted—a sort of civil disobedience.

The reunification therapy has been nothing but manipulation, psychological abuse. It’s been nothing but coercion and gaslighting.

Judge McDonald found Rachel in contempt for daring to defy his order and sentenced her to seven weekends in jail. He justified the reunification by saying there had been no criminal charges filed against the father.

Right after that, after two long years of a criminal investigation, the father was finally indicted and charged with seven felony counts of sexual abuse. He was also charged with a misdemeanor for the near drowning, which clearly should have been a serious felony—attempted murder. He bonded out.

The criminal court judge issued a Protective Order keeping the indicted father away from Rachel and the kids. But Judge McDonald pulled some strings to remove the two younger boys from the PO so he could continue to force them to reunify with the father. And the criminal court judge complied. Of course he did. Because a father’s entitlement is paramount. Children’s safety and mental health—not so much.

Rachel quite rightly describes her jail sentence as extortion to get her to go along with the reunification. She is in the process of being systematically and methodically disempowered via financial and physical oppression. Rachel goes between the DV shelter and the jail—but she maintains that she will never stop fighting for her children.

Judge McDonald has not been able to break her. And now the world knows what a POS he is and what a hero Rachel is. It is glorious to see a judge caught by international MSM with his pants down (sorry about the image).

REUNIFICATION—OR JAIL FOR HER

The main issue in Rachel’s story is Reunification Therapy. There are many WCN&V columns that address this and one that goes into depth about it: How Family Court Judges Weaponize Mind Control.

In brief, “reunification” is just a euphemism and cover for the coercive persuasion/brainwashing that is used on children to get them to forget about or accept the father’s abuse and comply with court orders to live with or visit him.

Rachel is sitting in jail as we speak because she opposed sending her youngest two boys to “Reunification Therapy” with their father. This sounds crazy to the Family-Court-uninitiated because she had the very best of reasons to object. Not only is her ex charged with serious crimes against children, the boys were having serious psychological problems.

Reunification is supposed to be used only when children unjustly resist going with a parent, but judges use it to reunify children who justifiably do not want to see their father due to his abuse. It is extremely rare for judges to force children to reunify with an abusive mother.

The problem for Judge McDonald in using this well-worn “reunification” tactic is that the children need to be isolated from their mother and anyone who supports the truth about the father’s abuse, e.g. maternal family and friends in order for it to work well. That is why things imploded for him and he ended up on the wrong side of public opinion.

Not that he wouldn’t have isolated the children if he could have. His hands were tied because of the CPS findings and criminal investigation. That is why the next oppressive step in the program was necessary: throw Rachel in jail to silence and break her. Extortion, as she calls it.

The important thing to keep focused on is that neither Reunification Therapy per se, nor the unethical therapists used, is the problem. The core problem is judges using the guise of reunification therapy to coerce children into going with abusive fathers.

KAYDEN’S LAW DIDN’T WORK

Another main issue surfaced by Rachel’s story is Kayden’s Law. It did not work for Rachel.

WCN&V has also covered child safety laws regularly, exposing them as an ineffective solution to the Custody Crisis. Kayden’s Law is just one of them but of particular concern, since it was made part of the VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] and is being codified in many states. This leads countless U.S. mothers (including Angelina Jolie, who was duped into promoting it) to believe it is an effective solution. Rachel’s case helps demonstrate why it is not.

The Colorado version of Kayden’s Law was passed after much activism pressuring legislators to do something following the recent murders of four children who judges gave to abuser fathers. Those cases were covered here on WCN&V: 4 Family Court-Enabled Child Murders in 2 Months in 1 State.

There is so much wrong with the Colorado version of Kayden’s Law that it would be impossible to address every flaw, but we’ll go over some of the main things here. However, you are encouraged to read it yourself and try to identify one thing that would have prevented Judge McDonald from ordering reunification with the father or jailing Rachel.

So, what does Kayden’s Law say?

It repeats the already codified child’s best interests doctrine—that a child's safety is the priority. But the bulk of it codifies that judges and court-appointed officials, like evaluators, children’s attorneys and therapists, need training in domestic violence and child abuse.

As for Reunification, it says judges cannot remove a child from or restrict contact with a protective party solely [poison pill that allows judges to use anything else] to improve a deficient relationship [new term for reunification] with an accused [should be abuser since it only applies if the abuse is founded] party.

Also, the law asserts that the judges should “consider” a number of factors related to abuse. “Consider”. Really? They already have to “consider” evidence.

And the inevitable: we need more studies (and more $$$ for those studies), so it created a “task force” to make recommendations to the judiciary, which they are not following because apparently they do not have to. The sponsor of the law, Representative Meg Froelich, says the judiciary told her to basically shut up and go away because the Legislative Branch has no right to interfere with the Judicial Branch (and mandate training) under the separation of powers doctrine. Crazy.

Rachel with Rep. Meg Froelich (middle)

But back to the main gist of Kayden’s Law: training, training, training. Phrases abound like: strengthening the ability of the courts to recognize abuse.

Rep. Froelich said this:

We just keep having these cases that demonstrate a complete lack of comprehension of the realities of domestic violence, child abuse and child sex abuse.

Now, do you for one moment think that the reason Judge McDonald is forcing Rachel’s children to reunify with their violent, rapist father is because he is not educated enough to comprehend the “realities of domestic violence, child abuse and child sex abuse”?

That is absurd. It is an insult to women everywhere for them to be promulgating this BS. Legislators are part of the Power Elite. They know exactly what the Old Boy agenda is. The Women’s Coalition has engaged with many state legislators and they will not do anything that threatens the status quo—until we have enough numbers to vote them out if they don’t.

The problem is that mothers at the protest and everywhere who’ve been victimized and traumatized are grasping onto the hope these child safety laws will stop judges from taking and endangering their children. But they never have and never will. Because judges can do whatever the hell they want.

Whether legislators can impose training mandates on judges or not, training is not the solution. It’s just another diversion from what the real problem is. That will be added to the other diversions in our Custody Crisis Rabbit Hole series: the “Education & Training” Rabbit Hole.

PROTEST

There was a protest on Thursday that centered around Rachel’s judge having violated Kayden’s Law. The legislators who sponsored the legislation were there in full force with a letter to the Chief Justice asking politely for her to do something. She responded with not much more assurance than thoughts and prayers for the poor women and children victims.

The kicker is: While the protestors are protesting the judge violating Kayden’s Law, the truth is, he did not violate it. The law is so toothless, there appears to be nothing in it he has violated. (Feel free to comment if this is wrong.)

Froelich acknowledges this with much hand wringing and shock, shock I tell you, that her new law did not stop a judge from forcing children to reunify with their substantiated and criminally charged child-rapist and child-torturing father. Nor will it stop him from switching custody to the abuser father on bogus grounds, such as Rachel is not being “friendly” or “cooperative”, the same reason she is sitting in jail as we speak.

One more annoyance is that the theme of the protest was gender neutral, i.e. fathers are being victimized in Family Court too. The language was full of protective “parents”, “abusers”, “moms and dads”, etc. Some were saying “mothers” but the gender neutrality prevailed, thanks to Froelich including men in her statements to the press, surely to pander to the male vote.

Behind me, I have jailed moms and parents, dads too, that have been threatened with jail, who have lost their children to abusers and even parents who have, whose children have suffered fatalities.

This is a shame because rallies MSM covers provide a way to get the truth to the public—that this is a Women’s Issue. That judges are lying about women. That there is no problem of children being routinely taken from loving fathers and forced to reunify with abusive mothers.

The funny part is that, despite the strategical inclusion of men as victims of Family Court too, the protest was conducted by all women.

TAKEAWAYS

Rachel’s case is outrageous and supports our contention that new laws within the Family Court system, no matter how good they look and sound, make no difference in the real lives of mothers on the front lines.

No matter how much training judges get, it will not stop them. The strategy of forcing the children to go with an abusive father, and euphemistically and deceptively calling it “reunification”, facilitates the Family Court agenda of entitling men after divorce.

No laws will stop judges from forcing children to go with abuser fathers because judges can freely discriminate against women and deny them due process.

If Rachel had gotten due process in a real court with a jury of her peers, she would not be sitting in jail. And her children would not be forced to reunify with their abuser father. No sane member of the public would support that.

Join our fight for a new system at The Women’s Coalition.

WHAT’S NEXT

Now that such massive media has taken on Rachel’s story, and the public is horrified at his rulings, Judge McDonald may back down.

There is a hearing scheduled for Thursday when he is expected to revisit the reunification order and Rachel’s jail sentence. Hopefully he will rescind both.

Stay tuned…

NOTE: You can Google Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins to see all the MSM coverage.

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