The Center for Children's Justice - Pennsylvania Chapter

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This is a widespread problem that continues to go on in family courts across the country.  A fathers child, his home, and other things that he worked for his whole life were taken away from him by the courts....for what?  I can't answer that.   Is it in the "best interest" of this mans daughter that she now doesn't have a father?  Please read below.  There are addresses at the end that can be used for contact or to just send a sympathy card.

Needham Divorced Father/209A-Defendant Kills Self

Pressures from divorce too much, attorney says Family, friends, and sympathizers to attend funeral tomorrow

BOSTON, April 28 - The family and friends of Steven Cook, along with several advocates for fathers rights,will attend the funeral of the recently deceased Needham man, Saturday, April 29. The service is to be held at the Eaton Funeral Home, 1351 Highland Ave., Needham, tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. (781-444-0201).  Cook was discovered dead from asphyxiation in his car Monday evening, behind a public building in Newton Upper Falls.

Jailed for calling daughter on wrong day of the week Cook had been involved in a bitter divorce. He had been accused and acquitted by a jury of assault and battery of his wife, but convicted of violating the 209A domestic abuse protection order she held against him. He was found guilty of attempting to call his four-year-old daughter Colleen on a Monday instead of a Sunday, as permitted by the conditions of the abuse protection order, and began serving a 60-day jail sentence January 29 at the Dedham House of Correction.

He was released April 2.  Cook's attorney Jerome Aaron characterizes Cook's jailing over the mistimed phone call as "outrageous."

Friends testify to "unrelenting" pressure

According to his longtime friends Doug Turcotte and [Ms] Bobene Desmond, Cook, a housepainter by trade, had been disabled due to a hip injury. He had no visible means of supporting himself. He had lost his house in the divorce litigation and no longer had a home.

With access to his four-year-old daughter restricted by the restraining order, and seemingly unending ruinous court orders that made it extremely difficult for Cook to do simple things like get his tools from his former home, Cook became so despondent he decided to end his life.

According to Turcotte: "During my last conversation with Steven a few weeks ago, he complained that his wife and her attorney were preventing him from seeing his daughter."

Longtime friend Berbone Desmond spoke with anguish over Cook's problems: "She [Cook's wife] stripped him of everything he had; they sold his mother's house...he was going to be a stay-at-home-dad because he had a bad accident years ago..."

Attorney Jerome Aaron concurs: "The process was unrelenting. She was in possession of the house, all the possessions, the children."

Family courts punish men, CPF asserts

In a prepared statement, CPF event coordinator John Maguire states: "Steve Cook was a man who could have used some help and support. The Massachusetts Probate Court didn't refer him to any support agency for stressed-out fathers in this state--because there is no support system for fathers in this state--no hotline for the despondent, no fathers advocates in the courts.

"Steve Cook went into Probate court, and the Court took away everything he valued: his daughter, his home, his tools. "These courts are not courts any more--they are revenge tribunals--where every man is guilty of nameless, unspeakable crimes--where a pat on a child's head is suspicious, where opening a door for a child merits a six-month jail sentence, where even a phone call to a child is a sinister act."

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This web site is strictly for your information about what is happening in our state; Pennsylvania.  Information and opinions on this website are NOT "legal" advice but ARE friendly advice from people who have been through the local domestic relations office and are very familiar with the crimes against humanity that office is getting away with strictly for PROFIT at the expense of fathers and their children.  Feel free to copy and repost any information on this site unless said information is credited to a web site other than Pennsylvania Family Court Reform (this website).  In this case, you must ask permission from the author, and since it's been our experience that most of the people that support our cause are good people, they most likely won't have a problem with it.  It's time to reclaim our state and our rights as Americans that are being trampled and ignored by a select portion of our state government, who's sole interest is PROFIT from federal grants for "child support" collection, at our expense... our JUDICIAL branch.