Children Sent to Juvenile Detention for Refusing to Visit Their Father

07.09.15

Three Michigan children have been incarcerated at a juvenile detention facility for over two weeks after an Oakland County circuit judge sent them away for refusing to see their father.

During divorce proceedings, Judge Lisa Gorcyca ordered the children, ages 9, 10 and 14, to submit to supervised visits with their father. When the children refused, the judge held them in contempt of court and sent them to Children’s Village Detention Center until they turn 18 or until she reviews the matter. The children’s mother, Maya Tsimhoni, is not permitted to visit them at the facility.

During a hearing last month, all three children refused to go on the court-ordered visits with their father. The oldest, Liam Tsimhoni, apologized to Judge Gorcyca for breaking the court order, but said he did not want contact with his father because he is violent and had hit his mother.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the judge told the child. “One day you can watch this video and realize that you two have been brainwashed. Your dad is a good man. Your dad is a good man who loves you.  You have been brainwashed. You are brainwashed.”

The judge went on to compare the Tsimhoni children and the Manson family.

“Dad, if you ever think that he has changed and therapy has helped him and he is no longer like Charlie Manson’s cult, then let us know and we can [review the matter],” Judge Gorcya told the children’s father, Omer Tsimhoni.

Lisa Stern, an attorney representing the children’s mother, said about the children being sent to juvenile detention for simply not speaking to their father, “I know laws were violated and I know that the children were punished for crimes they did not commit,” according to the local Fox news station in Detroit.

See the MyFoxDetroit coverage

here

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See the hearing transcript

here

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