CHILD CUSTODY - WHEN ONE PARENT TURNS THEIR LIFE AROUND FOR THE BETTER

MATTER OF BRADY JS v. DARLA AB, 2022 NY Slip Op 4858 - NY: Appellate Div., 4th Dept. 2022:

"Finally, we conclude, contrary to the mother's and the AFC's contentions, that there is a sound and substantial basis for the court's determination to award the father joint custody with the mother and grandparents and shared physical residence with the grandparents, with zones of influence for the father and grandparents (see generally Graves v Huff [appeal No. 2], 169 AD3d 1476, 1476 [4th Dept 2019]). Although the father has a troubled past and his relationship with the mother began under illegal circumstances, he and the mother have had a long-standing, on-and-off romantic relationship that has spanned over a decade and continued well into the mother's adulthood. The father admitted his prior mistakes without excuses or hesitancy, and he testified that he was trying, to the best of his ability, to make amends for the "ramifications [of] a decision [that] he made as a young man," which were far greater than he could have ever expected. The father has paid for his crimes and turned his life around, obtaining gainful employment and purchasing his own home. He has demonstrated a consistent desire to parent his child, who has never been harmed in his presence and desires to spend time with him.

The evidence at the hearing established that, as the father became more successful in life and more desirous of a relationship with his child, the grandparents became more restrictive and more hostile to the idea of any relationship between the father and the child. The grandparents testified that they saw no distinction between forcible rape and statutory rape, even when the parties continued the relationship for more than a decade. According to the grandmother, "[r]ape is rape." Moreover, without citing evidence to support their fear, the grandparents opined that the father was victimizing and grooming the child for future sexual actions with the father. Based on their steadfast (and unreasonable) belief that there should be no contact between the father and the child, the grandparents, in violation of a court order, denied the father visitation with the child for several months. Visitation resumed only after the father obtained an additional court order.

Considering the factors relevant to a determination of a child's best interests (see Fox v Fox, 177 AD2d 209, 210 [4th Dept 1992]), as well as the "`concerted effort by [the grandparents] to interfere with the [father's] contact with the child'" (Matter of Cramer v Cramer, 143 AD3d 1264, 1264 [4th Dept 2016], lv denied 28 NY3d 913 [2017]), we conclude that there is a sound and substantial basis for the determination that an award of joint custody to the mother, the father, and the grandparents, with shared physical residence between the father and the grandparents and zones of interest for the father and the grandparents, is in the child's best interests, and we therefore decline to disturb that determination (see Krier, 178 AD3d at 1373-1374; Matter of Thayer v Ennis, 292 AD2d 824, 825 [4th Dept 2002])."