Author Archives: TCLAW202
Passaic County DYFS Lawyers win fact finding trial
Passaic County DYFS Lawyers win fact finding trial
CW
Passaic County
Client and his wife were accused of abusing and neglecting their children for being drunk at home after a party. When the police came to the house, they saw that both parents were intoxicated. After sustaining an injury, the father had to be taken to the hospital and thus, the police didn’t want to leave the Mother home alone with the children. DYFS was then called and the children were placed with their grandparents. Complicating this matter was that both parents had a DYFS history. In fact, the Mother was actually in the process of appealing a finding of abuse and neglect when this happened due to an earlier incident. That incident involved the Mother walking around the street while with her children while apparently intoxicated. When the police went to the home to speak to the Father, he was apparently intoxicated as well. Thus, DYFS decided to try both the old case and the new case at the same time.
This case posed a number of challenges for me because I had to not only help my client, the father, but I had to also help the mother who had her own attorney. The fear was that if the father won but the mother lost, the mother would lose her job and put the family in a very tough financial position. Furthermore, it would be tough to tackle both cases at the same time. This limits our defenses and it gives the State two chances to win the case. DYFS only needs to show that the children were abused in one incident, not both to win. In the end, we used a great plan, tough cross examination and a great legal brief to win the case. The Court found that the State did not prove that the clients were intoxicated and thus, could not prove that the children were abused and neglected.
If you are facing a DYFS / DCPP case in Passaic County, call the team of tough, smart Passaic County DYFS lawyers today to discuss your case.
Client hires us just in time
Client’s son was accused of molesting a cousin. The cousin was staying in her house because of another family member’s DYFS case. The mother of the alleged victim made the allegations directly to my client but other than that, everything was quiet for a few days. She was really on the fence about hiring us since it seemed like nothing may happen. After much debate, she decided to hire us.
Within 48 hours, she received calls from DYFS and the Prosecutor’s Office. I fielded the call from the Detective of course. After explaining our position to him, I was able to get them to close their investigation and send the case back to DYFS. I also alerted the child’s school that no one should be interviewing the child. Needless to say, the client is very relieved that we were in her corner ahead of time rather than having to try to get us on board after those calls.
Parents get more parenting time
As an example of how quickly we can move, I was in a new case on Friday. The client had hired me only a week before. Due to drug use by the parents and child abuse, this case may be quite difficult going forward. As always, I came out guns blazing. As a result, I was able to double the parenting time the parents are entitled to. Not bad for a week’s worth of work. This could case become very interesting as the abuse allegations may not be accurate. However, the hospital may want to avoid a lawsuit.
NJ DYFS Lawyers 