My question involves a child custody case from the State of: California
Hello, I have recently been dealing with a legal matter regarding a change in custody and child support.
My daughters father is trying to get full custody of her and requesting child support.
He has not seen her for 10 years yet is claiming that I withheld the child from him and that I have alienated him. In addition, he is claiming that I am a drug addict, abusive, homeless and unsafe for our daughter.
I am very frustrated because the judge seems sympathetic to his claims and I have not had an opportunity to show that they simply are not true. They are false claims being used as leverage for custody.
My attorney told me that this particular judge hates to see fathers being withheld from their children which is understandable. I made many attempts to facilitate visitation. I called him many times and he would purposely hang up on me or call and hang up after a couple of rings. When I mailed things to him he, he either would not sign or refused to accept and all documents were sent back to me. I assumed after years of attempting to facilitate visitation, that he simply was not interested in her.
This past year he has caught up on child support and has used phone records to try to prove that he called and I failed to allow contact. He also presented emails that he has sent to an email address that I no longer has access to, to prove that I never responded to him. The phone calls are there but they do not mean that he was attempting to speak to her. They were the times that he called and would hang up. The calls that I made to him also hung up on. There were only a couple of times that he spoke to her and those were the times that I called. They were very short phone calls and he would accuse me of kidnapping and wouldn't communicate with the child.
It seems to me that he has been building up a case for all of these years instead of just seeing his daughter. We have mediation coming up and I don't know what to do. I am confused as to why the judge will not hear my side and allows him to keep making false allegations against me. I need to know if anyone else has been in this situation. How should I prepare? Is there anything more I can do to show the judge documentation that I did try to abide by the court orders and he did not? I have told my attorney everything and provided evidence but the judge has seen nothing.
I am not opposed to visitation, but he is a complete stranger to her. I don't want to put her in situation where she is with a virtual stranger without a process of being introduced before they can reestablish a relationship. What I am opposed to is being presented in a false light and not having the opportunity to present myself or losing my child over something that is a made up story.

