Getting Custody of a Child From Father, Mother is Incarcerated
My question involves child abuse or neglect in the State of: Virginia (and maybe Michigan)
I'll just do a quick timeline and get to my point. Sorry if it is a long read, this is a long story.
8 years ago-
She gives birth to her 6th baby and goes full fledge into her drug addiction. It leads to many counts of neglect and child endangerment. My parents and neighbors call CPS on her after her 2 year old is found naked playing on the railroad tracks down the street... alone of course. She loses custody of all 4 almost instantly, as does the father who is an alcoholic (and no longer in the picture).
From that year on, she takes on the stereotype image of a crackhead. She loses her job, her home, her husband leaves her, she hops from hotel to hotel, home to home, etc etc. Over the duration of the last 7-8 years, she's had many life threatening incidents. She's been held hostage, shot, stabbed, and beaten multiple times by dealers whom she owed.
7 years ago-
She has another baby, her 7th. He is born addicted to crack and they lose custody on the spot and the baby goes to us. We had a family friend who was looking to adopt a baby, so we offered to let her adopt him, and she does.
5 years ago-
We move out of state to get the kids away from their parents. My sister would show up at random times at all hours and with druggie friends of hers. Their dad was just letting them down. He's promise them things, and of course wouldn't follow through. Typical drunk dad story.
My sister also went away to prison, sentenced for 3 years.
2 years ago-
She gets released from prison and comes to MI to stay with us for the summer. Didn't go well. She was very hateful and abusive towards the children in the short time she was with us. My niece came to sit with her on the couch and rested her head against her shoulder and immediately she snapped "Get off of me!" and shoved my niece off of the couch. There also many incidents of her pulling their hair and smacking them. Of course my parents asked her to leave.
Goes to jail again, gets out and goes into rehab and a halfway house.
1 year ago-
She gets kicked out of her halfway house and meets her to-be boyfriend J (I'll just call him that). He allows her to come live with him since she has no where to go and it turns out she's pregnant. He offers to play the role of the father of her baby for her as long as they can be an actual family and she gets her act together.
Over the course of the pregnancy, her true self and lifestyle start to become apparent to him. J is a genuinely straight guy. He doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't smoke, he's a single father, goes and volunteers at his church, and he teaches and coaches at his local high school. My sister basically uses him. But yeah, over the course of the pregnancy, she falls into her old/usual habits and starts partying, staying out at all hours of the night, and gets high. She was even apparently arrested at some point in her pregnancy.
5 Months ago-
The baby was born in September. Since she had been doing drugs and we saw little improvement in her condition and lifestyle, we decided to call CPS and warn them about her and suggest that they do testing on the baby. Since she was apparently healthy, they saw no need to investigate my sister further. Though in spite of J, she chooses to not put his name on the birth certificate since he was aware of what my parents were doing. She also told my parents we were never going to see her and the baby again and that she was going to go find the father and go live with him. That never happened and she ended up staying with J since she had no where to go and J wanted to keep an eye on the baby.
We ended up calling CPS again because J called us and told us he didn't like how she was parenting the baby. Apparently one afternoon while he was out, she left the house with the baby and showed up at 5AM without the baby. She told him she left the baby at the neighbors house so she could have a sleep over with their 10 and 12 year olds. The baby wasn't even a month old at the time. He immediately went over to the neighbors house and got the baby. The girls were already up with her and feeding her. Personally, I think this is out of habit. She probably thinks nothing of it since she did this to me all the time when I was younger. From the age of 8, she'd take me over to her house and leave and go party all night while I had to learn how to care for a baby. By 14 I was a master at it and taking care of a baby was second nature to me. But to do that and call it a sleepover. I'm also wondering what their mom thought...
So we called CPS. They said as long as J was there, everything should be fine.
So here's where our current issue comes in...
So yesterday J called and told us that my sister has been arrested and it appeared she was going to be going away for awhile. But the problem is that the guardianship had been handed to S, the biological father whom she had contacted and had a paternity test for. It turns out that the last time she was arrested, she was enrolled in some program (not sure about the name) where they try to rehabilitate drug addicted and criminal mothers in order to keep them with their babies. And part of that is that if they relapse or they're arrested, the baby goes to someone designated by the mother. In this case, it is S, the biological father. My parents and J called CPS to see if they could take action and get the baby under their care, but they were told as long as my sister is in this program they are going to try to keep her and the baby together and they baby can only go to the guardians she requested.
And this is where it gets a bit scary for us and worries us...
S is homeless and jobless. Not only that, but he goes by a nickname and doesn't allow people to know his real name. Sure, he may have put his real name on the forms and during the paternity test, but did they do a thorough check on this guy??? Surely they would not hand the baby over to a guy who is living out of his car. J kindly offered to let S stay with him since he had no where to stay and because he wanted to keep an eye on the baby as well. But for legal purposes, he asked S to put his name on the lease and register his name to the address. S snapped on him and told him he couldn't do that. He refuses to give J his full name, which leads J and my parents to think S is a felon with a warrant. His overall appearance screams druggie. I've heard many people in the drug community will go by nicknames in order to protect their identity in case cops tried to track them down. We want to get the baby out of the care of my sister and this S guy but we don't know what to do. Everytime we try to talk to CPS or her case worker for that program, they immediately shoot us down as if everything is going to be okay.
But they don't know my sister, we do. Shouldn't they take the tips and hints from family instead of shooting us down?
Does anyone know more about this program that my sister is in? And does anyone have any suggestions on what we could do? I posted on another advice forum... and I didn't get much help. Someone told me to tell J to take a cup that S used and take it to the police department for finger prints or to simply tip them that he might have a person with a serious warrant staying with him. Some have told us its none of our business and just because he's homeless, it doesn't mean he'll be a bad parent. But people with common sense know that you can't raise a child out of your car.
Oh and if people are wondering about the timeline, its just to show what we've gone through with my sister... when I tell some people they sort of downplay it and think its like a case of when a parent has spanked a kid in the store. Nope... my sister is more so the type to intentionally leave her kid at the store so she could go off and earn a little cash from a male client, forcing the poor thing to walk home on his own... (true story).
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