Ένας τεχνικός σύμβουλος που αντιμετώπιζε με δυσπιστία το 90% των καταγγελιών κακοποίησης, πρότεινε μία έφηβη να διαμένει με τον κακοποιητικό της πατέρα.
Ο Mark Kilmer, τεχνικός σύμβουλος σε υποθέσεις επιμέλειας διορισμένος από τις δικαστικές αρχές, έχοντας ο ίδιος καταδικαστικές αποφάσεις για ενδοοικογενειακή βία, δήλωσε ότι αντιμετωπίζει με δυσπιστία το 90% των υποθέσεων ενδοοικογενειακής βίας και σεξουαλικής κακοποίησης. Τα Οικογενειακά Δικαστήρια στο Colorado ξεκινήσαν πριν 14 χρόνια να διορίζουν τεχνικούς συμβούλους σε υποθέσεις επιμέλειας, σε καθεστώς ιδιωτικού δικαίου για να υποκαταστήσουν τους δημόσιους λειτουργούς. Το κόστος, το οποίο αναλαμβάνουν οι διάδικοι, μπορεί να φτάσει τις δεκάδες χιλιάδες δολάρια. Έχει δημιουργηθεί μια συνθήκη πλήρους αδιαφάνειας με θύματα τα παιδιά, τα οποία πολύ συχνά καταλήγουν στην επιμέλεια του κακοποιητικού γονέα.
Πρωτότυπο κείμενο:
Elina Asensio had a restraining order in place against her father when she met with a court-appointed psychologist assigned to determine whether he should be part of her life.
She expected Mark Kilmer, the Colorado “parental responsibility evaluator” appointed to her parents’ custody case, would want to hear about the incident that had led to her father being charged with felony child abuse and pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault. The 14-year-old was surprised, then, as she talked to Kilmer on the front porch of her mother’s suburban Denver home in October of 2020, that he didn’t seem interested in learning about it.
A year earlier, according to police reports, her father had grabbed Elina from behind by her lucky charm necklace and hoodie and dragged her up a flight of stairs. “Dad, I cannot breathe. … You’re hurting me, stop it,” Elina had screamed, according to the police report. She was left with burst blood vessels on her eyelids and a deep cut from ear to ear where the necklace had dug into her neck, according to the police report. A child welfare investigator described the resulting scar as a “ligature mark,” the imprint left after strangulation.
It was Elina who first brought up the incident, mentioning it after Kilmer asked why, “if you love your Dad,” she was not attending therapy with him, according to notes that accompanied Kilmer’s report to the court.
“I still feel my dad’s hands around my neck sometimes,” she recalled telling Kilmer, who is the brother of actor Val Kilmer.
He responded with a blank stare, she said.
Elina told him about other violent incidents involving her father, including one directed at a sibling, according to Kilmer’s notes.
Colorado family courts began appointing parental responsibility evaluators, or PREs, to custody cases 14 years ago as a privately funded alternative to court-furnished evaluators. The litigants shoulder the cost, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and in some instances the PRE is paid by only one of the parents in a dispute. The intent was to allow a broader range of psychologists, including those the court could not afford, the opportunity to lend their expertise to custody decisions. They have operated with little oversight.
Elina didn’t know at the time they met that Kilmer says he does not believe about 90% of the abuse allegations he encounters in his work, or that he himself had been charged with domestic violence. Kilmer was arrested and charged with assault in 2006 after his then-wife said he pushed her to the bathroom floor, according to police reports. Following the incident, the woman obtained a restraining order against him and he was required by the court to give up his guns pending resolution of the criminal charges, according to court documents.
The following year, he pleaded guilty to harassment and, in a separate divorce proceeding, temporarily lost decision-making power over his children because of concerns about his parenting. The court placed him on probation for 24 months while he completed domestic violence counseling. After he completed probation, the court dismissed the assault charge.
“Unfortunately, I had a conflicted divorce myself,” Kilmer said in an interview. “She made up these false allegations and had me arrested. It was pretty humiliating and shocking.” His guilty plea was the result of poor legal representation, he said, and he regrets not going to trial.
Kilmer, who received a doctorate in psychology from the California Graduate Institute, had also been previously disciplined by the State Board of Psychologist Examiners in 2009 for revealing confidential information about one client to another client in an effort to set them up on a date. He was required to have his practice monitored for a year but was allowed to continue working as a custody evaluator. (Kilmer said he obtained consent from both parties before introducing them, according to board records. The board noted clients “cannot consent to a boundary violation and/or breach of confidentiality.”) Today, Kilmer’s psychological license is in good standing.
Colorado’s State Court Administrator’s Office, which is responsible for vetting PREs, said a criminal misdemeanor conviction older than 15 years does not disqualify a custody evaluator from family court appointments. ProPublica found that four evaluators on the state’s roster of 45 PREs, including Kilmer, have been charged with harassment or domestic violence. In one case, the charges were dismissed. In the two others, it is unclear how the charges were resolved. […]