Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you in reference to the sexual predator laws and the fact that they need to be changed. I have a Brother who resides in Iowa. He was in a relationship with a manipulative,abusive,drug and alcohol addicted woman. He finally got smart and left her to better himself. During their relationship he had 3 children with her, all of which were born with Fetal alcohol syndrome. The children are the spitting image of their mother., she taught them well. My brother gave up everything to fight for these children, all the while she was on welfare, purchasing drugs with the governments help.

The children were finally placed in his custody because the mother was caught doing drugs on hospital property. Meanwhile, my brother met and married a wonderful woman. 

After receiving custody my brother tried to get some counseling for the children, to help with all that they had been through. He was told no by every organization that he contacted. The mother was having visits with the children; the children were really acting out, being disrespectful, and just downright bad. He caught them reading naughty magazines and such. After about a year, one of the children accused my brother of touching her privates, my brother was arrested and is now going to prison for 25 years. The children were removed immediately and placed separately in foster care. The children's mother died of a drug overdose 6 months later. He was not represented properly in court because he was indigent he received a "free" attorney, his attorney was also working on a couple of murder trials and was very busy. He did not research the case, he did not submit any evidence that we supplied, and he just didn't care. The children are all now in foster care together, living a good life, they all have their own cell phones, they get to go on family vacations, and are actively involved in sports at school, when my brother had them he could not afford to do these things, the foster family gets it all free from taxpayers . The laws need to change, help the falsely accused, quit enforcing laws that allow children to get what they want by any means. After my brothers sentencing, which was 25 years and lifetime on probation, his children left the court house with flowers in their hands, laughing and happy. This is not typical behavior for children that just lost their only living parent. We believe the flowers were purchased by the count attorney. Please listen to what I have said in this letter, make changes, and help the laws work for the people, not against them. Our lives have all been affected by this., our family is in ruins. We will never have another holiday with my brother. Our mother is 71 years old, she will probably die while he is in prison. This is the life we all have to face now. While the children are in a happy life!, financially assisted by us, the taxpayer! Thank you for listening. 

Suzanne [redacted surname]
[redacted address and phone number]

For a number of years I have been a noise maker. I had a reason to fight what I knew was unfair I fought against the Department of human Services and its policy of protecting women involved in custody disputes with their ex's. I fought long and hard to prove the point I was making- "There is nothing to prove that a women is a better parent than a man" I raised hell with DHS- writing letters to congress, to the Governor of the state of Iowa, to the President of the United States, and of course several letters to local newspapers. I wanted people to see what the "self perpetuating system of misery" was doing to the people they were helping.

My ex was a professional client of DHS. She knew the system well; I am surprised she was not offered a job through DHS. The government allowed her to use the system to brow beat me during a period of unemployment, and label me a "deadbeat", because I fell behind on child support payments. Little did I know that while we were living together, in prior years, she was receiving welfare for my children. She did not use the benefits to "benefit" the children, but to purchase drugs and alcohol; she became an alcoholic drug user. Her addictions caused us to separate, and I had to leave my children behind, I thought on my own I would have a better chance to get my children. (We were never married, therefore in the eyes of family law, I had to establish my rights to my children), (even though I was to pay child support).  

I had to take her to court to fight for visitation of my children, I did begin to receive visits of the children, but only 2 of my children were allowed to see me. My third child, my only Son, was convinced by his Mother that her "sugar Daddy" was his Father. I later had to pay out the nose to establish DNA for my Son.  

My Daughters would tell me horror stories of abuse at the hands of their mother and her "men". I would immediately report this to DHS, only to have DHS call her and warn her that they were going to do a welfare check. My Daughters witnessed sex acts and drug deals regularly but, DHS found no reason to act on any of the complaints. One of my Daughters was almost kidnapped during a drug deal that went bad.( this came directly from my daughter) But, DHS thought this was o.k., you see my ex knew what she was doing. When DHS would call and say they were coming she would put away all of her bent spoons, and needles, and any other drug paraphernalia she had lying around, she would return all of her empty vodka bottles and empty beer cans, she would clean up and put on her best act ever. She would tell the children what to say, when to say it, and who to say it too. Programmed by a master (I know this because this type of conditioning was used on me. I believed her too, which I had sought help on my own after realizing how demented she was) 

When any of the children were hurt and a small lie would not cover up the incident, blame would be redirected. One instance was actually reported and founded against her, all DHS did was offer her more help, counseling, not treatment. Not only did she have the system mastered, she knew how to manipulate people. She had a knack of knowing what people want to hear. She was a career alcoholic!  

I did not give up my fight, but I did give up on DHS. I knew nothing would ever come from pursuing anything with them; they looked at me as If I were a nuisance, because she had told them and convinced them of this.DHS would never wake up to the reality that it was her and not me. Biology made me wrong, and them right!  

I redirected my efforts towards the court system, and began to fight. Now I was being met in court by the counselors that DHS had supplied her with, the same counselors who saw her as a good parent. I was shocked because DHS does not normally involve themselves in custody battles, but, she showed up in court with an entourage of DHS paid counselors, and therapists to show how well she was doing as a mother., Throughout this whole time, no one ever thought it was odd that my Son did not live with me or her, but her elderly boyfriend?, I was not surprised when I lost in court, I was defeated in court by a pro with a large government, funded support group, a support group paid for with my tax dollars, all of our tax dollars!  

I started to redirect my efforts at not just her, but the system that created her. I used every resource I had available, driving myself and my wife into bankruptcy, to fight for a better life not just for my children, but for all children.  

I worked at a local Science museum and had major contact with the community, on an average day I would have 1 on 1 contact with 400 children and their parents. Every day I would see the happiness in their eyes; this is all I wanted for my children, and myself. I used my position to aid in my fight, and provided support for the joint custody bill that the governor signed into law. I met personally with the governor and shook his hand and thanked him for signing the bill, but told him that we still had a long way to go. I was dedicated to not only protect Fathers rights in a state that labels them deadbeats, but I wanted to correct a system that allowed mothers not only to use children as pawns, but as a source of income.  

My fire died out one day when DHS called me during a visit with my children and informed me not only to NOT drop off my girls, but to pick up my Son and the kids stepsister. My ex had gotten caught doing drugs at the hospital, while being treated for a condition caused by the drugs, even though DHS stated she was drag free. At this point I thought my fight was over, I no longer would have to struggle day to day to be the Father I always wanted to be., little did I know that my fight had just begun.  

The angels that I had fought so hard for had been damaged by the system, the system that should have protected them. All the years of living unsupervised, with no rules, had taught them to be disrespectful, and that lying was a way to get what they wanted. Their grades at school were not the best because they had no study habits. Rather than finding out how to get the answer to a question, all they cared about was getting the answer by any means. The girls were disrespectful, dishonest, and out of control, but, my son was worse. He had lived his 7 years being able to get whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. His mother's sugar daddy had spoiled him by giving him all he wanted and If the girls had something he wanted, he took it. Fights were a daily routine; lack of respect was a fact of life for my kids. The fight I had now was considerably more than any other fight I had. I had drained my finances and now had 4 more mouths to feed, one child that I had no biological right too, but DHS had to put her somewhere. All the while I was still paying child support so the state could still provide income for my ex. She continued to receive ADC until she was able to get SSI. I repeatedly informed DHS of her situation only to be treated like I was in the wrong.  

We asked DHS for help, all they would do is provide the children with 1 hour of play therapy a week, we not only needed financial help, but medical help also. DHS turned us away.  

I finally decided to get a lawyer to convince the head DHS worker to provide some family counseling also. Things did get a little better, but then the children would have a visit with their mother and we would go back to square one. Everyone involved agreed that visits were hard on the children; they were stressed when they came back from visits with her.  

The children's grades improved but life at home was less than pleasant. My oldest Daughter, who used to be my best behaved, was changing before our very eyes. She was slowly becoming her mother. She had her mannerisms and was acting and talking just like her, she would fight and argue about things even when she knew she was wrong. My once sweet angel had become the Devil incarnate, lying and manipulating the truth, manipulating her siblings to get what she wants. We would report her actions to her "worker" but nothing changed, they only got worse. I would have to leave work to break up fights. I found that I could not leave her alone with my wife and the other children. If I had to go to the store, or anywhere, she would have to go with. I had to adjust my hours at work so I could be home when my Daughter got out of school but then my wife had to deal with the fights in the morning. When school got out I had to take her to work with me. "Daddy's girl" had begun to rebel from Daddy. (With plenty of coaxing from her Mother)!  

One night when things were calm, My Daughter lived for havoc, so she was not content that things were calm, she told my wife that I asked her to have sex with me! Of course this created an issue but we were able to see why she was acting out so much an mentioned this to 2 of the many social workers, she had gotten over her latest bout, and improved her behavior for a while. Her actions had earned her a reward. We allowed her to stay the night at a friend's house. She was scheduled to be picked up at a certain time, when I got off of work I went to the house where she was supposed to be, only to find the house empty with no one around. We began to persistently call and after a while we finally got a hold of her and we went to pick her up. Summer vacation was just about over and I had planned for her to visit with a counselor at school in one week so her punishment was one week of being restricted.  

Earlier my eldest Daughter was seeing a therapist at the Abbe center for some problems she was having when she lived with her Mother., this therapist would visit her at school. She seemed to progress with that type of care and I was looking forward to it starting again. Anything would be better than the hell I was living. The children and their behavior had stressed my relationship with my wife. We were financially ruined, with the cost of all of the court hearings. When the children came to live with us all they had were the clothes on their backs, we had to buy all new clothes, shoes, school stuff, and everything that goes with children. To top it off in the 2 years that the kids were living with us, I was still paying full child support. We were having problems at the Science station and were wondering when I would be losing my job. We were stressed and strapped. My wife's health was slipping, she has diabetes. The stress was killing her and I, she was hospitalized, and I had a stroke. We were being pushed beyond the limits of endurance.  

Friday night was a tradition at our house, no matter what we had family night. All participated, even if you were on restriction. We would all stay up late and watch movies, or T.V. until everyone fell asleep. My eldest was the last one up and she said to me "remember when I said something that made mom mad at you? well, If you don't let me off my restriction I am going to say it again"  

I lived the next few days in a daze. I did not know what to do, or how to react. I love my children, and my family was all I lived for. I could feel it all slipping away. My wife and I had lost nearly everything, now I felt as though I would be losing her too. I tried talking to her but the children, their mother and all the stress was too much for her and she became ill. I could see she was slipping away again into ketoacidosus (a severe diabetes condition). I had hit the kids before with the confrontational measures. When one of them wanted to run away, I packed her bags, when one wanted to mow the yard, even though he was smaller than the mower and could not push it, I made it his chore. Confronting them and making them realize that they could not do what they thought they could made them realize what was real and not real. When I mentioned the "in your face" confrontation to DHS workers they thought it was great. In sleepless desperation I began to ponder confronting my eldest with her latest game. Everyone else was sound asleep and she began asking me questions. I took a piece of paper out and wrote across the top of it "write, don't speak". She said "why" and I did not respond driving home the point that I would not listen. I wanted her to write her threat, if she just spoke it again, I would have no proof. In her silence I began to write a draft, how do I confront such claims. I wrote it out and then read it. I realized I was way too tired to be trying to think up something so I went to bed. I threw away the paper and crawled into bed. I was awakened quickly with loud stomping upstairs. This was nothing new so I went upstairs to see what her new problem was, I was used to not going to sleep until after she was asleep. She was ordered to go to bed and I waited until she was asleep. The next day things were normal until she began to act up again. When I sent her to her room she called my wife in there. My wife came out and went back downstairs and apparently dug into the trash and found the draft. All hell broke loose! I ended up leaving the house; I went to the park and wrote my wife a note trying to explain things.  

When I returned to an empty house I guess I just snapped. I had lost everything that had meant anything to me. I do not remember much beyond not wanting to live.