Child Abandonment and Possible Termination of Rights

[cmupchurch]

My question involves child abuse or neglect in the State of: Flordia

Under what circumstances can I file for child abandonment in the state of Florida? The father has only seen the children once in six years.
He only started paying child support a year and a half ago, only because the state was going to put him in jail. He is currently 30+ thousand in arrearages.

He is a dead beat and a conman. We have an attorney in Palm Beach that isn't doing a very good job at the moment, so we don't know what to do since we already paid him $20,000.
The father has had 5 DUI's, 4-5 Domestic Violences, No Drivers License for 10 years, currently on probation for 2 years and has a severe anger problem. We currently have 700 pages of evidence against him and my wife and I want him out of our lives. Is it possible?

Please help.

[Dogmatique]

700 pages of evidence?

If that was relevant, his parental rights would have been terminated involuntarily by now. It sounds like your wife (not you) doesn't have enough to do a TPR outside of a stepparent adoption.

[cmupchurch]

I can assure you it's all relevant, however we haven't had a court date yet. It's scheduled for July 6th. We never learned about TPR until I hired a legal consultant in TN where we reside today. Since we live in TN, we can't do anything here until the case is closed in FL. We would like to know every avenue we can pursue to end this for good.

[Dogmatique]

Believe me, a Judge is NOT going to want to wade through 700 pages.

If it was that big of a deal, child services would have been involved OR the State would have been involved before now. To put it another way, unless that 700 pages of whatever it is ALL happened very recently, it's likely not going to matter at all.

As I had indicated (or at least that was my intent - perhaps it wasn't clear on my part, for which I apologize), having a parent's rights terminated involuntarily is incredibly difficult.

That's why you hired an attorney on your wife's behalf.

[cmupchurch]

I think you got the wrong idea with the evidence, it would be more clear if you were familiar with the case, however... You did answer our question. I figured it would be difficult but worth asking. Every phone call to our attorney cost $80 and it's hard to actually get him to jump right on something, so it takes a few calls which of course we get charge for.

Thank you very much for your immediate, and educated response. It's been very helpful.

[Dogmatique]

Forgive me for prying, but is there a reason you're not considering a stepparent adoption? It would be far easier to convince the court that a TPR is appropriate in that circumstance, than trying to get a TPR (which essentially bastardizes the child and the court is extremely reluctant to do that outside of extreme circumstances - the state wants two people to be responsible for a child) outside of that without there being obvious and extreme abuse or neglect.

[cmupchurch]

He once agreed to give up the children and let me adopt them, but later changed his mind when he found out he would still have to pay back child support. I didn't know stepparent adoption would be possible if he is still the legal father?

- - - Updated - - -

I don'y know if this is allowed, and please forgive me if it isn't, but I would gladly pay for a educated, quick phone consult with someone knowledgeable on Florida family law.