Rose continues to cross-examine Rita.
Q. No. I’m talking about the week of March 5th where you indicated earlier that you had to cancel it because Amanda was sick, but in fact you took the kids to Michigan with you.
A. I don’t recall that.
Q. Let me see if I can help you recall that.
MS. TORQUATO: She never testified to a date.
MS. KAUFFMAN: She did.
BY MS. KAUFFMAN:
Q. Take a look at this bottom thing and tell me what it is.
A. What part of this, what part of the bottom?
Q. Well, read this. What is it?
A. Amelia Mockensturm, date of procedure. Yes, she was seen for a — at the Urgent Care in Dundee.
Q. In Dundee, in Michigan?
A. Yes.
Q. So you did take her to Michigan?
A. I didn’t deny I didn’t take them to Michigan. I don’t know the exact date. And that’s Amelia; that wasn’t Amanda.
Q. I’m not saying who was sick and who wasn’t. I am saying you took the children to Michigan with you.
A. Most likely.
Q. But you told the Child Access Center that Amanda was sick and you had to cancel the appointment?
A. I don’t remember what date Amanda was sick, and I do know one time I did tell them she was sick, and she was sick.
Q. The second time, you indicated to them that one of the kids has an ice show rehearsal, and you couldn’t make the supervised visitation that time. Isn’t it that time that your sister testified, at the end of March, you were in Michigan again with the children?
A. I don’t remember. They had spring break, and they also had ice show stuff. We went to ice show rehearsals, and then I think after that we went on to Michigan. I don’t remember the specific dates of that. I would really have to have a calendar and see what it was. They had ice show rehearsals frequently up to ice show day, and the actual ice show, they have rehearsals every day, and I have two kids going through it. They have two different schedules of skating.
Q. But they’re on different dates; is that right?
A. Not necessarily. Some of them — their schedule varied. It’s whatever the skating director gives you as a schedule. So sometimes they both went on one day; sometimes they both went —
Q. These were both Wednesdays.
A. No.
Q. No. Their Child Access Center meetings were on Wednesdays.
A. Yes, Child Access Center meetings were on Wednesday. They did have a couple of skating times on Wednesday. They didn’t have a set schedule for skating. It’s basically we have a schedule. They slot you in what group you’re in, and this is when the ice is free.
Q. Mr. Mockensturm was in jail for most of January. February he was being psychologically evaluated so he wasn’t able to see the kids. So it wasn’t until the beginning of March that he was able to see the kids; isn’t that true?
A. That’s correct.
Q. At that time, there was supervised visitation once a week at the Child Access Center?
A. That’s correct.
Q. And you canceled both of those, lying about where the children — what was going on with your children when in fact you were out of town with the children.
A. I did not lie. I told them he didn’t need to know what my whereabouts were, and if I canceled, I certainly asked the Child Access Center when he could make up the time, and we certainly did. He did not ever go without his visit.
Interestingly, Rita said she did not lie to the Child Access Center, although she probably did. I’m reasonably sure the ice show rehearsal excuse is a lie; it just doesn’t make any sense. Plus, if they had practices every day, I’m sure it would not have been an enormous issue to miss one. I would have hated being responsible for them missing even one rehearsal, but children were always missing in their age groups, and my girls never seemed particularly stressed about these ice shows. Years later, I asked Amanda why she was so relaxed when I would have been a nervous wreck. She said everyone expected them to fall, so there was no reason to worry about it. This attitude reminds me of one of my favorite advertising campaigns, Bud Light’s Real Men of Genius; they saluted Mr. Professional Figure Skater in one commercial. The narrator says, “Skate perfectly, and you’re a crowd-pleaser. Mess up and fall on your butt, and you’re a crowd-pleaser.”
Q. And you don’t think it was important for him to know what the children’s whereabouts were?
A. I didn’t want him to know where I was, so my safety and for theirs.
Q. You were in Michigan; did you think he was going to follow you?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Your sister also seemed to indicate that you picked up your mother on a weekend and took the kids with you?
A. I think that’s correct.
Q. So you loaded three kids into your car, drove six hours to Michigan and six hours back with one child who you’ve indicated quite a bit has a lot of health problems and another child who has got some behavioral problems; isn’t that true?
A. Six hours there, yes, and six hours back, yes, but not all in the same day.
Q. How many other times have you taken the children between the beginning of this year to go to Michigan?
A. We went over spring break, and I think they had a long weekend, Memorial weekend.
Q. So four times?
A. Possibly. I don’t know for certain.
Q. You’ll agree with me that’s a lot of driving?
A. No. It’s an easy trip. They like to drive. They don’t mind it. They’re used to it. We do it often. This is nothing new that we did over the years.
We never as a family went to Michigan four times in six months, but the kids did seem to travel well because they had iPads, iPods, etc., to entertain them during the trip. Amanda would empty her bladder through the catheter into an empty bottle, and we would usually stop quite often. Thus, the trips were usually more like seven hours.
I have no idea how the kids felt about these frequent trips to Michigan. I suspect they enjoyed them because Rita and her family likely went out of their way to make sure the kids had fun. However, I did see some text messages on Amanda’s phone when she was staying with Debbie while Rita was out late. Amanda kept begging her to come back, and Rita would constantly tell her she’d be home soon. Then a half-hour later, Amanda would send more messages desperately asking Rita to come back. These messages upset me because I knew how Amanda was feeling. She was terrified that something would happen to her mother being out so late. I had felt the same way as a child many times.
Q. So essentially you told your children to lie to their father about whether you were here or there or what —
A. I told them they didn’t have to lie, but I said he doesn’t need to know where I’m at and what I’m doing.
Q. And in fact, that was the reason why when we asked that he be — once he was able to have unsupervised visits, the request was that he visit with the children one at a time; isn’t that true?
A. Is what true?
Q. The request that we made was that he see each child separately during the school week.
A. That was his request, yes.
Q. And that is because he lives in an efficiency apartment that is very small.
A. That’s his reasoning, yes.
Q. He lives in that efficiency apartment because before he moved out the two of you had an agreement. You asked that he move out, fairly repeatedly, and he agreed he would move out but said he couldn’t afford to move out?
A. That’s not true.
While it might not have technically been accurate that I didn’t think I could afford to move out, it was correct that I found a tiny, inexpensive apartment because we had agreed that I would have my custody time at the house on McBath Street.
Q. You thought he could afford to move out?
A. We had an agreement. He breached that agreement. He also took an IRA, and he took that IRA and cashed it in, which was about $7,000. We agreed to take that money and use it for his apartment.
This exchange was one of many times during the hearing that I wanted to stand up and say, “Hold on a second,” because Rose had not prepared to question Rita about this. I have no recollection of any official agreement, and certainly not one to use the small IRAs I’d started while in graduate school to pay for an apartment. I cashed out my IRA after realizing she’d cashed out hers; I had completely forgotten about them. Thus, if anyone violated the agreement, it was her. Regardless, it was all irrelevant once she got the PFA.
Q. So the agreement that was reached in the fall was that he was going to move out, the house was going to be refinanced, the three mortgages, two related to that shoe store that you started and the first mortgage, it was going to be refinanced so that your total mortgage obligation a month would go down about $700 a month?
A. We said we would look into refinancing. After receiving the papers and reading all the legal documents, I was not comfortable signing something that said that we were basically going to reside in the same house, that was our marital house, and that we were not separated. Those things weren’t true, and I did not feel comfortable signing the document.
Q. That was in March, was it not? I’m talking about in the fall.
A. Yes, I understand. But he did not move out when he said he would.
Refinancing to pay for the apartment was the plan I recall. We had a 15-year mortgage on the house, so our payment was relatively high.
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