You may have noticed that the temporary PFA order said that I was only to have supervised visits with my children. Besides being upset about being accused of abusing Rita, I was distraught that somehow the court had decided I could only visit my children with supervision. I could see Judge Ruest not noticing the kids listed as plaintiffs, but there’s no excuse for her to not question, at least at the time, why supervised visits were necessary. I could understand her adding this after I’d violated the PFA and checked myself into the hospital. However, this was there before all that happened; Judge Ruest had no excuse for not noticing because she should have been simultaneously issuing an order for these supervised visits to begin. This episode is another reason I blame Judge Ruest for much of this mess, and I wish there were consequences for her.
She did issue an order on January 11, a week after the temporary order was issued and a day after the second PFA violation, stating that I was to contact the Child Access Center (CAC) within ten days and have weekly two-hour visits. I’m not sure who funds this group, but they provide supervised visits and secure custody exchanges. I requested a few times to have custody exchanges here so Rita would not accuse me of anything. Rita always refused because it would have meant making a half-hour round trip to Bellefonte. So much for being scared of me.
Since I wound up in jail, this all got delayed, and I do not recall when the visits started, but this was also the first time I observed another flaw in the system. Judges would issue orders requiring the involvement of some community service. Inevitably, these services would not meet the judge’s demands because I assume they did not have the resources. I’m not sure of the exact timeline in this case, but I do recall being frustrated with how long it took to get the visits started and then scheduled as ordered. Even though Rita should have had her orientation while I was in jail, the CAC delayed the start of visits because she had not completed this.
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