Judge Capizzi and The Destruction of My Family

It’s a horrible, horrible experience to go from nurturing your child one minute, to visiting him in a institution (Abraxas Shelby Ohio) twice a month over 3 hrs away the next. It’s as if your child has died. But that’s how I grieve. Nathan was taken away from me on 7-21-16. He had no pending charges, or probation violation. It was his 1st Drug Court, he had no legal counsel, it was his 17th birthday, and his urine was clean. No one will help me help him. All I can do now is hope that the 17yrs that I had my son I was able to instill enough thoughts, beliefs, and good character to override what he’s learning in there. My other children, and I grieve. We live from visit to visit, and a 10 minute phone call on Wednesday’s. I have watched Nathan change. He’s different. He carries himself different. He talks different. His vocabulary is different. He’s depressed, he has developed anxiety, and has lost all hope for his future. He tolded me “Mom when I’m here I can’t be the person you remember me to be. I have to be the person I have to be to survive.”

Nathan had become unruly for less than 4 months. In those months he didn’t steal from anyone, rape anyone, or murder anyone. Charges implying he has hit anyone are questionable. Nathan acting out as long as he did was because Nathan was placed with his 35yr old drug addicted, convicted felon uncle who’s done prison time and elderly grandpa who is almost 90 yrs old. I only agreed to it because I wasn’t given any other choice.

Every time Nathan got in any kind of trouble I called his probation officer as I was instructed to do. Nathan needed to be out of the situation he was placed in. It took me a whole month to get him away from his uncle. Was Nathan allowed to come home to the only family, the only mother he’s ever known? No, I had the choice of placing him with strangers in foster care, or with my mom. Which evil did I choose? My mom. At least I could visit him everyday, start family counseling and him home. What worried me was my parents are addicts, and fact that my step dad was praising Nathan a month before for lying to police, and having me thrown in jail. Still losing my son in the foster care system wasn’t a option.

Nathan was so sorry, ashamed, and embarrassed of the way he acted. He realized how serious all this was, and wanted to come home, to be with his Mama, his little brother & sister, to go to school, and to have his life back.

I did everything I was told to help my child. Little did I know that every time I called Cecilia Wilson, I was helping stack up complaints which brought on charges that were blown way out of proportion. I did everything she told me to do thinking I was helping my son. All I did was hurt him.

Nathan has been torn from everything he’s ever known. He’s being brainwashed into thinking he’s a addict. If he disagrees with anything he won’t move up levels, therefore he won’t come home. 

My son has lost everything. He has lost things that no person with a few petty charges, and experimentation with drugs should lose. Freedom to move around a room, gone. Freedom to speak to whoever one chooses, gone. Freedom to use the bathroom alone, gone. Freedom to choose one’s friends, gone. Freedom to dress as one wishes, gone. Worst of all freedom to think for one’s self, gone. Freedom to have one’s own identity, gone.

The core design of these faculties conflicts with everything we know about adolescence, brain development, and delinquency. They take young people away from their families, their schools, their communities and they cram them into a harsh, punitive building with other deprived young people. They systematically take away their hope for the future, fill them with anxiety, depression, and lies. They shape their identities so they see themselves as addicts or hardened criminals, and then after 9months we return them to their communities. Instead of facing up to the issues with family involvement, and out patient counseling to help heal whatever trauma caused this behavior in the first place. We continue moving children through these pipelines that churn out one failed result after another, and create more issues than the behavior that caused them to be incarcerated.

I’m a single mother of 3 beautiful children. I’m a law abiding citizen, I work hard, and I take good care of my kids. My son had always got good grades, and stayed out of trouble. This all started over him running away. He started acting out because he was 16 and felt I treated him like a little kid. He is apart of a large group of men raised by women. He was just trying to figure out who he was. If I had to do all over I’d of gone about it way differently. I was falsely accused of domestic violence, and thrown in jail with a $25,000 bond. The officer who arrested me kept apologizing saying they had to arrest me due to Amy’s Law. Even though I had issues with Nathan recently, and his story didn’t make since. (The charges later dismissed.) I had to spend every dime I had on lawyers and Nathan still isn’t home. I really thought the system was going to help me help my son, but that’s not what the criminal justice system is set up for. It’s no parent’s friend, and that is something I found out the hard way. They don’t really care for these kids, and it breaks my heart, because I always believed in the system.

**Edit added link to video of Abraxas Shelby Ohio. My son was released 2 months before the abuse hit the media. Judge Capizzi Montgomery County Juvenile Court judge is still contracting with Abraxas as well as Montgomery County Ohio**