Jacksonville Criminal Defense Attorney Blog

Joseph Reyes of Chicago Illinois was raised Catholic, but converted to Judaism when he married his wife, Rebecca, who is Jewish. The couple is now involved in a bitter divorce battle, which includes questions about which religion their daughter will be raised in. The family law judge assigned to the case, Edward R. Jordan, had barred Reyes from taking his three year old daughter to church.

Reyes defied the order and was brought back to court on charges of indirect criminal contempt. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If found guilty, he could face six months in jail. Reyes asked to have his contempt charges heard by a different judge, and Judge Elizabeth Loredo-Rivera presided over his arraignment.

The girl has been in the custody of her mother since the marriage ended, and has been raised in the Jewish faith. The court order barring Reyes from taking his daughter to church was precipitated when he had her baptized without his wife’s permission. When Ms. Reyes found out about it, she asked the judge for a temporary restraining order. Judge Jordan then imposed a thirty day restriction against Reyes exposing his daughter to any religion other than Judaism.

When Mr. Reyes brought his daughter to church after the restraining order was handed down, he called the media. He was later featured talking about the order on Good Morning America. Ms. Reyes’ attorney has charged that Reyes is not particularly religious, and implied that Reyes is grandstanding. Read more about the case at Dad Pleads Not Guilty on Violating Court Order For Taking Daughter to Church.

If you are involved in a custody battle, please contact our Jacksonville, Florida law firm for legal counsel.

Sergeant Jeffrey A. Grahn of the Clackamas County, Oregon Sheriff’s office was the last person anyone would suspect to go on a shooting spree that ended in him taking his own life. Grahn was a big proponent of trauma intervention, and even taught a course on it at the Clackamas Community College to help volunteers learn how to effectively help people in crisis.

But Grahn and his wife, Charlotte, were in the middle of negotiating their divorce, and the stress apparently took its toll on him. On a recent Friday afternoon Grahn went and found his estranged wife at a bar with friends. He asked her to step outside, where he shot and killed her. He then went back into the bar and shot two of his wife’s friends, killing one and injuring the other. He then left the bar and shot and killed himself outside.

The murder/suicide has seriously affected this small Oregon town. The Sheriff is left wondering why Grahn didn’t take advantage of the employee-assistance program, peer-support team, or chaplain services his office has in place to help officers through personal troubles. To read more about this tragic incident, visit Before his own burst of violence, Clackamas deputy worked in trauma intervention.

If you are involved in a divorce, please contact our Jacksonville, Florida law firm for legal counsel.

In the state of Florida, if a parent has been convicted of misdemeanor, first degree or felony domestic abuse charges, the judge may rule that it is not in the child’s best interest to award custody or visitation rights to that parent. The same is true if the parent is in prison for a crime that would warrant terminating parental rights. If a parent is denied parental responsibility by the courts, he or she has the right to ask a judge to consider evidence that might prove that it would not harm the child to allow the parent custody or visitation rights.

If the parent has not been convicted of a domestic violence or child abuse offense, the judge will generally consider evidence of abuse, even if the accusing party has never filed an injunction for protection from domestic violence against them. The judge will use the evidence to determine what type of parental rights the alleged abuser is entitled to.

If an abusive parent is awarded visitation rights, the other party may request that the visits be limited or supervised. It will be up to the judge to decide whether or not the abuser represents a risk to the child or the other parent that warrants supervised or restricted visitation.

If further violence does occur, the other party may still apply for an injunction for protection against domestic violence. Read more about Florida statutes that pertain to child custody at Can a parent who committed violence get custody (parental responsibility) or visitation (time-sharing)?

If you are involved in a child custody battle, please contact our Jacksonville, Florida law firm for legal counsel.

Michael Snyder was missing for eight years before police found his body recently, buried in the backyard of what used to be his home. His wife, Ellen Snyder, has been charged with killing Snyder in 2002. Ms. Snyder’s attorney, Penni Adrian, is speaking out in order to dispel false rumors about her client’s motives for murder.

According to Adrian, the Snyders did not have a prenuptial agreement, and Ms. Snyder did not receive a million-dollar payout from an insurance policy on her husband’s life. Adrian continued by saying that Ms. Snyder was abused by her husband during their nine year marriage. The abuse reportedly got worse after Snyder was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001. However, according to Albuquerque police, they never received any domestic violence complaints from the couple or their neighbors.

Adrian went on to say that Snyder became involved in a sexual relationship with another man. According to police records, around the same time, a co-worker of Ms. Snyder noticed bruising on her shoulders and gave her a gun to protect herself. Soon after, Snyder woke his wife up at 3am and started a fight with her. She warned him to stop because she had a weapon, but he laughed at her. According to police, Ms. Snyder fired all eight rounds at her husband, waking her seventeen year old son. When her son saw that Ms. Snyder was unharmed, he decided not to call the police. The two then allegedly buried the body in the backyard.

Sometime later, her son began confiding in other people what had happened that night. One of those people worked for Ms. Snyder, and when she fired him, he went to police with the story. Ms. Snyder and her son both confessed to police right away, and say they feel relieved to have the truth out in the open. The case is now with the district attorney. Find out more about the case at Attorney Reveals Ellen Snyder's Story.

If you have been the victim of domestic violence, please seek help immediately, and then contact our Jacksonville, Florida law firm for legal counsel.

After three years of a bitter divorce battle, a Connecticut man, Richard Shenkman, allegedly kidnapped his ex-wife, Nancy Tyler, holding her at gunpoint and burning down their former home. He also allegedly burned down Ms. Tyler’s beach house two years earlier. Mr. Shenkman had been ordered by the divorce court to turn the home over to his ex-wife and to pay her $100,000 for legal fees. He reportedly told police that he kidnapped his wife and burned down the home because he was afraid he was going to be held in contempt of court for not paying the settlement as required.

Ms. Tyler is currently unable to rebuild her beach home, because Shenkman has filed a civil lawsuit claiming that he is entitled to half of the homeowner’s insurance settlement, even though Ms. Tyler was granted the property in the divorce. Her attorneys asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, which it did, but Shenkman immediately appealed the decision. Ms. Tyler will be unable to collect any money until the matter is settled. In the meantime, Ms. Tyler is required to continue paying the mortgage, taxes and insurance on the now vacant lot.

She has attempted to sell her other property, but since Shenkman had let the homeowner’s policy lapse, she must pay off the mortgage, taxes and insurance before the property can change hands. Even though the couple had paid off the mortgage during their marriage, Ms. Tyler learned during the divorce that her husband had taken an equity line of credit on the home and then stopped paying it. With the principal and fees the balance is now $100,000. Shenkman had also stopped paying the property taxes, meaning that Ms. Tyler owes the town $32,000 in back taxes.

Shenkman has been found in contempt of court and ordered by a judge to pay Ms. Tyler nearly $180,000 for legal and other fees, and will be held in custody until he does so. You can read more about this less than amicable divorce by visiting Shenkman's former wife trying to dig her way out of divorce debt.

If you are considering divorce, please contact our firm for legal counsel.

A Jefferson City, Missouri woman, Terri Chilton, has been arrested and charged with first degree endangering the welfare of a child. The victim was her own one year old granddaughter, whom Ms. Chilton allegedly fed blood thinners in order to make the child ill.

Ms. Chilton reportedly engaged in a series of actions designed to make the girl’s parents believe that she had ingested rat poison. She has claimed that she committed these acts in the hopes that the child’s illness would prompt her parents to reconcile; their marriage was reportedly in trouble and the two are in the process of getting a divorce.

The poisoning caused the child to bleed uncontrollably from her mouth, nose and two minor scratches. She survived the bleeding, but it is unclear if there was any permanent organ damage caused by the blood thinners.

Ms. Chilton has been charged with these crimes but is innocent until proven guilty. That anyone, especially a relative, would intentionally feed poison to a small child is unthinkable.

Find out more about this topic at Terry Chilton, 41, Accused of Drugging One-Year Old Granddaughter With Blood Thinner.

Drew Peterson is about to stand trial for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. A hearing to determine whether hearsay evidence will be allowed at trial included testimony from a few associates of Drew Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy. Drew Peterson is a suspect in Stacy Peterson’s disappearance, but has not been charged with a crime in relation to it.

At the hearing, a neighbor of Drew and Stacy Peterson, Sharon Bychowski, reported that Ms. Peterson had told her that she feared for her life after asking Peterson for a divorce. She reportedly told Ms. Bychowski that “if I disappear, Sharon, it’s not an accident. He killed me.” Ms. Peterson allegedly made the comments less than a week before she disappeared in October of 2007. Ms. Bychowski reports that she urged Ms. Peterson to put her fears in writing, in case anything happened to her, but Ms. Peterson replied, “it doesn’t matter, I’m already dead. He’s going to kill me.”

Peterson has always maintained that Ms. Peterson took $25,000 and ran off to Jamaica with another man. Ms. Peterson has not been heard from since her disappearance and her body has never been found.

Sometimes when a marriage goes bad it can result in violence to one spouse. If you are in an abusive relatioship, please contact our Jacksonville, Florida area law firm for legal counsel.

Find out more about this topic at Peterson's neighbor: Stacy warned Drew would kill her.