Abusive, alcoholic dad gets custody of 5-year-old boy after getting help from Mexican police, U.S. State Department in tracking down mom (Knox County, Tennessee)

Judge Varlan is a woman-hating idiot who is either willfully ignorant about domestic violence or just doesn't give a sh**. 'Cause he just knows the mother is lying about the father's alcohol abuse and physical violence, cause, well he just knows. Misogynists always "know" that it's the woman who is lying.

Actually, Mom is very credible. If she wanted to sound more "convincing," she could have said the father abused the boy as well. In reality, it is not uncommon (at least in the early stages) for the father to abuse the mother but not (directly) abuse the children. (Emotionally, however,  he is abusing them by diminishing their caregiver.) That the mother was dependent on him for financial assistance is also reality, and that she tried to let the abuser see the boy is also common. Battered moms really do try to be nice and accommodating. They really do. But apparently Mom couldn't take it anymore so she ran. At a terrible sacrifice to herself. This is not a decision that mothers make lightly.

And of course, because abusers are control freaks, he chased her down with the help of the Mexican police AND the U.S. State Department. Gosh, we don't have any drug dealing murderous gangs to worry about anymore? No other international issues of pressing importance? Who knew? Two governments magically cooperate and collaborate to help the batterer track down a battered woman like she was a rabid dog so he reclaim his child/property.

So now, the child is actually at very high risk. Daddy has to take on the responsibility of full-time caregiver, when he is a short-tempered abuser with a traumatized child. And, of course, he wants to punish mom in the worst possible way.

This is partly what happens when you give never married fathers "rights" over women and children. Sickening. And when you turn the Hague Convention into little more than a "slave catching" operation to benefit abusive men.

Dad is identified as EUGENIO GARDUNO GUEVARA.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/crime-courts/judge-orders-boy-5-returned-to-mexico-in-international-custody-battle-30d9edd3-7f6b-1e42-e053-010000-376272141.html

Judge orders boy, 5, returned to Mexico in international custody battle

April 19, 2016

By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

In the first ruling of its kind in East Tennessee, a federal judge is ordering the return to Mexico of a 5-year-old boy at the center of an international custody battle.

Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan is siding with Mexican father Eugenio Garduno Guevara in a rare case brought under The Hague Convention of 1980 International Child Abduction Remedies Act in a fight over the boy Guevara fathered out of wedlock with Mexican mother Alma Soto Soto.

Soto spirited the boy away from Mexico and into the U.S. illegally in 2013 after the couple, who had been living together and sharing custody, split up. Guevara spent two years tracking down mother and child, using the Mexican police, The Hague Convention treaty, the U.S. State Department and Facebook, before finding the pair living in Knoxville.

The case ultimately landed in front of Varlan, the first time the federal court system here had been tapped to decide under the treaty which country — Mexico or the U.S. — had authority to decide custody.

In his ruling, Varlan noted the treaty did not authorize him to decide which of the two parents was the fittest but rather was designed to prevent parents from court-shopping among foreign nations.

"One of the main purposes of the ICARA is to prevent parents from removing children from the country of their habitual residence to a more sympathetic court in order to have a 'home court advantage' in custody determinations," Varlan wrote.

It will be up to a Mexican court now to decide the boy's custodial fate.

Guevara and Soto had the boy out of wedlock in Mexico in 2010 but lived together with him until March 2013 when Guevara moved out. A month later, the boy and his mother disappeared. Guevara eventually found mother and son via a photograph posted on Facebook, showing Soto and the boy at the Wichita Falls Park in Wichita Falls, Texas. But she disappeared with the boy again. The pair resurfaced in late May 2015 in Knoxville when she sought custody through Knox County Juvenile Court.

Although Varlan did not weigh in on which of the two was most worthy of custody, the nature of the case did require him to consider allegations typically aired in a domestic courtroom. He first had to decide if Guevara had visited and supported his son after he and Soto split.

"In the three-week period of separation when the child was in Mexico, (the father) visited with the child on four occasions, including one overnight visit," Varlan wrote. "(He) also provided (Soto) and the child with some degree of money and food support."

Varlan also had to sort out conflicting claims between the pair. Soto, via attorney Scott Saidak, claimed Guevara was a mean drunk, and the boy would not be safe in Mexico. He denied that.

Varlan didn't buy it.

"While (Soto) submits that (Guevara) had an alcohol problem and abused her in the past, she does not allege that (the father) abused the child," Varlan wrote. "(She) also allowed (him) to visit with the child multiple times when they were separated, and testified that (he) supported the child with food and money during the period of separation, both of which tend to show that plaintiff would not subject the child to serious abuse or neglect if the child were returned to Mexico."

A second case under the treaty is now pending in U.S. District Court. That one involves a father living in London and a Bangladeshi mother living in Knoxville with the couple's twin babies.