Photo from Fox 2 video
This ruling is a little hard to fathom.
Fox 2's Taryn Asher reports that Oakland County Judge Lisa Gorcyca's has taken away three Bloomfield Hills children -- ages 15, 10, and 9 -- from their mother and sent them to Children's Village, a juvenile detention facility, for refusing to have a relationship with dad and attend a court-ordered lunch with him. They're being held in civil contempt. They've been in the facility for two weeks.
Asher reports that a group of Metro Detroit moms rallied at the Oakland County Courthouse on Wednesday to protest the move.
Fox 2 reports that the Tsimhoni family of Bloomfield Hills has had its issues, namely that Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni and Omer Tsimhoni, have gone through a messy divorce. They've been in and out of court.
On June 24, the judge conducted a hearing on supervising parenting time and got upset because the kids refused to spend time with dad, Fox 2 reported.
So the judge ordered the kids to Children's Village and threatened to keep them there until the age of 18 unless they change their minds.
According to court documents, one child tried to explain his reluctance to spend time with dad, saying "Because he is violent and I saw him hit my mom," Fox 2 reported.
Critics have said even if the parents weren't playing fairly, the kids shouldn't have to suffer and be placed in a detention center.
Updated: Thursday, 12:22 a.m. -- The Observer obtained an interview with the father, who said:
“I’m in shock by what’s happening. My ex-wife lost in court after many times she was warned and as a result she just went out to the media to put pressure on the judge or overrule the judge. I understand everybody’s pain – the children’s pain, my pain, that the children are where they are. But she saw it coming and never tried to prevent it.”
He said the mother was doing everything to sabotage his relationship with the kids.
"She is poisoning them and the judge realized that," he told the Observer.
He told the Observer what might have prompted the kids to give him the silent treatment.
“The one incident that happened was five years ago I had a five-hour unsupervised visit. We were in a park and Maya was circling around the park the whole time, trying to sabotage the visit. Two hours into the visit, the children ended up in her car and she was trying to leave. I tried to prevent her from leaving because it was my time with the children. I was very careful not to do anything but she claimed that I pushed her. She screamed at the children, ‘Call 911! Call 911!’ The police showed up and Maya was screaming and the police confirmed that nothing happened. But in the children’s mind, that’s what happened.”
