A Judge Poised to Put a Mother in Jail — for Trying to Protect Her Child from Sexual Abuse

My Letter on One of 160 Children per Day Sacrificed in Family Court — in a Modern-Day Slave Trade

Honorable Judge Jimenez:

I am a forensic psychiatrist and expert on violence with twenty-five years of experience treating violent offenders, in addition to serving as an expert witness in approximately 200 criminal and civil court cases, of which approximately 35 were in family court. I taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for seventeen years before transferring to Harvard Medical School, where I am a faculty member of the Harvard Program in Psychiatry and the Law. I am president of the World Mental Health Coalition and cofounder of the Violence Prevention Institute. I have consulted with the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2002 and helped coauthor the United Nations Secretary-General’s chapter on “Violence against Children” in 2007.

I am also a mandated reporter. I am currently writing to you because [New Jersey child] is in danger of being murdered by her father .

What I am seeing is a repetitive pattern in family court and with Child Protective Services (CPS): there is a clear-cut pattern of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by one parent — usually the father, as in this case — and custody is taken from the safe and loving parent and given to the abuser. This is why statistics show that up to 20 percent of child murders by parent may be reduced if there were no family court involvement. This is also why there are almost a thousand child murders in just sixteen years, in relation to family court. A Department of Justice-sponsored study showed that, if all family court decisions were reversed, they would be more correct (that is, safer for children). A detailed study in 2017 of 175 child murders by fathers showed that family courts in many cases had given the access or sole custody the fathers needed to murder their children.

No doubt Your Honor is aware of the abysmal CPS records, to the point where there are calls for abolition — not because child protection is not needed, but because errors are overwhelming, and in my experience, whenever family court is involved, they do more harm than if there were no CPS. The Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP) itself had to change its name from CPS in 2012 because of excessive scandals, and my understanding is that statistics have still not improved since.

There are three well-established facts in the research literature:

1. Child abuse is very common, including sexual abuse (1 in 5 children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

2. Child abuse is underreported, not overreported (false reporting was found in about 0.1 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and mothers almost never falsely report).

3. Family Courts and CPS working with Family Courts often work to “turn tables” against the reporter of abuse — turning the perpetrator into victim, and the victim into perpetrator — to the point where it has become a global crisis. In 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report, warning that grave human rights violations were occurring for women and children who enter family courts, because of this tendency to “reverse victim and offender,” by denying the existence of abuse.

I have outlined my medical findings in the attached, earlier letter. There is little room for uncertainty or doubt in my medical conclusion that [New Jersey child] is being sexually and physically abused by her father — of which there is copious medical documentation — and protected by her mother , who is by all collateral accounts not only a safe mother but an exceptionally loving and talented one. There is also little to no probability that the mother is “alienating” or “coaching” the child, which not only does not work but is a common fantasy associated with delusional abuser psychology, not with scientific evidence-supported reality.

Please save this child’s life. A father who batters her to the point of making marks and lacerations, who sexually abuses her to the point of making her vagina red and painful, and who chokes her to get back at the mother for reporting his abuse, is eminently capable of killing her. When family courts and CPS workers side with and enable abusers, they do not remain the same. They become much more extreme in their violence and more capable of killing their children, their ex-spouses, and themselves. These are dangerous individuals. If they make threats for not getting what they want, they should be referred to criminal court, which are better equipped to deal with violent personalities and do not get caught in “framing” the victim instead.

I and those who care about the imminent safety of this child are relying on Your Honor to make the right decision, based on a child’s human right to live, and to live in safety. Thank you for your concern, and please do not hesitate to contact me for any reason.

Respectfully submitted,

Bandy Lee, M.D., M.Div.