By Nydia Bauza
PUERTO RICO – Superior Judge Sonya Nieves Cordero last night denied a request from the Department of the Family, through which the agency sought to obtain provisional custody of Nazaret, the two-year-old girl who was removed last Wednesday from the home of the mother, Lisha Ramón Mejías, in the El Polvorín plots, in Cayey.
“They gave it to me, they gave me my daughter,” the minor’s mother exclaimed with a smile, after a hearing ended at 8:15 pm at the Caguas Command.
Ramón Mejías indicated that the agency would deliver the girl to him last night in Cayey. However, the young woman clarified that, as part of the protocol, the minor, who is in a temporary home, will have to be checked in a hospital.
“The first thing I’m going to do is hug my daughter, breastfeed her, and give her all my love,” she said.
“As soon as I can, I’m going to breastfeed her, because my breasts already feel it,” said the young woman, who praised the work of her lawyer, Ramón Rivera Grau, who accompanied her when she left the headquarters.
“He is the best lawyer who fought, and who did everything possible to make it so (the determination to return the girl to the mother),” he said.
In addition, the young woman said that her daughter’s removal process was “unfair.”
“They did not follow the procedure, the protection order was for Miguel, not for the girl,” said Ramón Mejías.
On the other hand, Mr. Rivera Grau stated that there were never any allegations of mistreatment, either by the mother or the father, towards his daughter.
“There was nothing to support the most drastic measure, which is the removal of a minor,” said the lawyer.
At the hearing, which began at 4 pm, the Family Department brought as witnesses two social workers who intervened in the case.
In it, the judge listened virtually to the parties. The girl’s mother and father, Miguel Torres, appeared before the Command as did the DF, the petitioning party, represented by the lawyer, María del Pilar Guzmán.
The hearing of a civil nature was scheduled for 1 pm, but it was not until after 5 pm that it began, behind closed doors, like other processes in which child custody matters are discussed.
At 7 pm, it was revealed that Rivera Grau was cross-examining one of the social work professionals who investigated the case.
This case has generated great public pressure to the point that neighbors joined Ramón Mejías yesterday, Thursday, on the PR-1 highway, in Cayey, after the 21-year-old mother denounced on the social networks of her Organic business that the agency he had taken away his daughter. In the place, Ramón Mejías sells natural juices daily as part of his economic support, carrying his little girl in a backpack on his chest.
The Department of the Family alleges that it removed the minor because her parents did not comply with a protection order for an incident of Law 54 that, apparently, did not reach court.
As the protest in Cayey was going on, the administrator of the Administration for Families and Children, Glenda Gerena, said that the agency has emergency custody of the girl for a period of 72 hours.
The case dates back to an incident of domestic violence between the couple on December 19, for which Torres obtained a protection order against Ramón Mejías, under Law 54, for Intervention against Domestic Violence. At that time, the court gave provisional custody of the girl to her father and removed mother-child relations from the mother until the case was heard in January.
On December 23, the father of the minor withdrew from continuing with the protection order and had previously returned the girl to her mother. This Thursday, December 29, at the request of the petitioner, the municipal judge of Caguas, Evyanne Mártir Hernández, ordered the file of the protection order.
Amid the differences between the couple, the Department went to court on Wednesday with an emergency custody request and that night removed the girl from the mother’s home on the grounds that both parents had violated a protective order with the delivery of the girl to the mother while the legal recourse is in force.
The mayor of Cayey, Rolando Ortiz Velázquez, went to the Caguas Command to support Ramón Mejías, and, at night, he remained there.
“I consider Leisha to be a hard-working young woman, a mother who has met her responsibilities to her daughter. It is enough to see the publications that she has made on social networks about her and her little one that denote her an extraordinary degree of maturity in the parenting process, even at her young age, ”said Ortiz Velázquez.
“We are hopeful that tonight this couple, both Miguel and her, can have Nazareth in their home,” added the mayor of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD).
Earlier in the afternoon, attorney Rivera Grau told reporters that he had not had access to the investigation that Familia conducted into the case and that he maintained that there is no longer a protection order against his client.
“The Department of the Family has some prerogatives within its investigation to which I have not had access at the moment, it is still a confidential process,” Rivera Grau told this medium.
The lawyer indicated that the Family will have to ask the court for remedies and present evidence that the removal of the minor was in accordance with Law 246, which in our opinion were not the elements for the process.
Rivera Grau said that the 21-year-old mother is not accused of any crime. “There is no type of protection order in force, here there was an investigation that arose as a result of a protection order and what there was at the time was an ex parte order that was withdrawn by the petitioner itself,” the lawyer said.
family reacts
For its part, the DF press office maintained in written statements that the agency respects and complies with the decision of Judge Nieves Cordero. However, she stated that they are obliged to exhaust all available resources to guarantee the protection of the minor.
“While, as ordered by the Hon. Judge Sonya Nieves Cordero, we continue to make every effort to open up mom and dad to receive services that strengthen them, so that they can guarantee the safety and well-being of the minor. Precisely, part of what the Department of the Family offers to help in cases like this is a sensitive service plan that, according to the needs of the family, provides them with the skills and tools they need”, she highlighted.
Meanwhile, the government entity reiterated that its purpose is for the minor to be healthy and safe, and as long as the parents are trained to guarantee it.
“We will give the necessary help and support so that, at the end of the process, you can continue in your family nucleus,” he said.
“The Department of the Family has the obligation to guarantee the safety of minors, regardless of judicial, administrative or any other type of determination, in cases of potential aggression or mistreatment against any minor in Puerto Rico,” he said.