Share your thoughts
You can share your thoughts on this story on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/daytondailynews
A California woman ordered to surrender her adopted daughter to Montgomery County by July 16 told “Good Morning America” that she has thought about violating the court order.
“It’s something that has crossed my mind,” she told reporter George Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos asked Doss what she plans to do if Vanessa has to go back to Ohio. “Well, she’s my daughter and I think as a parent, you’re prepared to do whatever you have to do to save your child,” Doss said. “I think that my beliefs tell me that you save your daughter. You save your child from being in harm’s way. If she’s going to be in harm’s way, I’m going to protect her from that in whatever way I have to.”
Her spokeswoman, Michele Johnsen, said afterward that “Stacey was giving a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question. She is relying on the courts to resolve the situation.”
Doss has filed an emergency motion in the California Court of Appeal in Santa Ana that she hopes will freeze the order to return Vanessa to Montgomery County.
Doss claims Vanessa’s birth mother told her that she didn’t know the identity of Vanessa’s birth father, Benjamin Mills Jr. of Dayton, who is now fighting for custody.
In response to the “GMA” segment, Mills’ attorney, Elizabeth Gorman of Legal Aid of Western Ohio, issued a statement that her client “has worked from the day she was born to protect his parental relationship with his daughter.”
Even before his baby was removed to California, Gorman said, Mills filed a complaint in Ohio seeking custody of her and a complaint to determine his paternity, and he registered with the Ohio Putative Father Registry, a government list that allows biological fathers to give legal notice that they claim paternity for a child born outside of marriage. “A key purpose of the registry is to prevent children from being adopted without the father’s knowledge or consent,” Gorman said.
Joe Kroll, executive director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, said that the courts take perjury or falsification in an adoption case — such as the birth mother’s apparent falsehoods on the adoption papers — very seriously.
Mills’ criminal record, Kroll noted, “may be Stacey Doss’ real trump card.” According to the complaint in Mills’ January 2005 arrest for domestic violence against Vanessa’s birth mother, Mills “grabbed her hair and dragged her around the house by the hair while she held their daughter in her arms.” Eventually, the report stated, Mills pushed her onto the bed and began strangling her.” He served eight months in prison after being convicted.
“GMA” legal analyst Robin Sax said the courts in this case aren’t abiding by their own mandate to look out for the best interests of the child. “Family court is supposed to be centered around the best interests of the child, and given Stacey’s history, there’s no doubt it’s in Vanessa’s best interests to stay with her,” Sax said. “Yet instead of Vanessa’s best interests, the courts are focused on the perjury question and the validity of the adoption process.”
Doss said Mills visited with Vanessa in June 2009 and June 2010, around the time of her first and second birthdays. “The reason I had him come is I was really hoping that we could negotiate something and that we could figure out how to make a difficult situation a little bit better,” she said. “I found out very early on that he was not someone that we were going to be able to negotiate with.”
Doss said that Vanessa was frightened of her birth father. “He didn’t seem to have any parenting skills,” she said. “He was more interested in seeing the sights of California than in interacting with his daughter.”
Mills did not appear on the morning show, but “GMA” included a statement that was released by his attorney that “he trusts the court will continue to issue appropriate orders to protect his daughter’s best interest.”
Gorman later stated, “For most people, it is difficult to imagine anything more painful to a father than having his child offered up for adoption in a distant state without his knowledge or consent. That is exactly what happened in this case.”
About the Author