Domestic Violence

December 31, 2014

Court: No Spousal Support for Domestic Abusers – In re Marriage of Kelkar

California law allows a family court judge to deny or reduce spousal support payments in a divorce case when the spouse requesting or receiving the support has been convicted of domestic violence against the other spouse during the last five years. The law, set out in Section 4325 of the California Court of Appeals, was enacted in January 2004. The state’s Second District Court of Appeals recently explained that the law can nevertheless be applied retroactively to cover domestic abuse convictions before the statute went into effect.

Husband filed for divorce from Wife in July 2002. He alleged at the time that Wife had physically and verbally abused him roughly 200 times over the course of their marriage, including by punching him, threatening him with knives, and trying to push him down a flight of stairs. Wife was charged with a crime following an incident in 2000, in which Husband said he awoke to find her yelling at him and brandishing two knives. Wife proceeded to stab holes into the waterbed in which Husband had been sleeping, according to a police report, and Husband was cut in a struggle for the knives.

Husband and Wife entered into an agreement in 2004, under which they settled various property distribution issues and in which Husband agreed to pay Wife monthly spousal support. The appeals court later recounted that Wife continued to pepper Husband with profane and threatening text messages following their divorce, and she also harassed Husband’s fiancé. She violated restraining orders obtained by both Husband and the fiancé, according to the Court.

September 1, 2011

Divorce is Painful But Not This Painful

by Lorna Jaynes

In July of 2011, an obviously angry and unhappy 48 year old wife from Garden Grove in southern California whose husband of 16 months had recently filed for divorce cut off her 60 year old husband’s penis and then tossed it into the garbage disposal.

According to the police, Catherine Kieu Becker made her husband a delicious and unbeknownst to the husband, poison laced dinner and served it to him.

As the dinner (poison) kicked in, the husband felt sick and went to lie down. Shortly thereafter he lost consciousness and Becker tied his arms and legs to the bed with a rope and stripped him naked. She took a 10-inch kitchen knife and began sawing away at her husband’s penis, according to police.

August 24, 2011

Divorce and Custody Battle Causes Man to Set Himself on Fire

by Lorna Jaynes

In an incident that received little attention in the mainstream press, a man named Tom Ball, 58, committed suicide in front of the Keene, New Hampshire County Courthouse on June 15, 2011 by dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match. His 15 page suicide note explained that he was angry at the state child protection bureaucracy and the courts after his ten year battle over child abuse charges. He was angry at the US court system, the federal government, police, child protective services, in general, a system that in his opinion no longer works and no longer serves our interests.

Ball’s troubles began when he slapped his then four-year-old daughter, giving her a cut on the lip, when she refused to obey him after three verbal warnings.

His wife called the child’s mental health provider who apparently told her that if she did not call the police, both she and Ball would be arrested.