This is a true story about how the legal system has failed my family. All the documents posted with personal information on them are public record.
The legal system has been designed with the intent to find the truth. Unfortunately, a lot of people lie. While I believe the intentions are good, the consequence of this is that it treats everyone as if they are lying. I believe that an unintended consequence of this is that it gives those who understand the system, and know what lies they can get away with, an advantage. If the courts continue to allow people to get away with perjury, this will continue to be the case.
That being said, I’ll start from the beginning.
Sometime around August of 2007, I received a Facebook message from someone named Kristin Looney. It said “Why did you add me? I don’t know you”. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the beginning of a very long and traumatic story.
I didn’t know this person, so I couldn’t answer her question. After talking a bit about it, it seems that I did add her. At the time, Facebook had a feature where you could sync up your AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) account and automatically add all your contacts. One of those contacts on my list was kykris83 – a handle that Kristin apparently had owned, or taken ownership of at some point. She would later come to the conclusion that we must have become AIM contacts from our interaction on a site called HotOrNot – a website where you could post your picture and have strangers “rate” your looks from 1-10. It turns out this could not have been true though, as HotOrNot never had any features to allow members to communicate with each other, so how she ended up on my list remains a mystery to me.
Kristin and I began to talk regularly. She was an attractive woman who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee at the time, and it quickly turned into a fairytale-esque long-distance relationship. She told me how much she hated living in Tennessee, and would often complain about her turbulent relationship with her mother. She told me her father had never really been in her life – her father had “turned gay” and abandoned her mom, her, and her brother at a very early age. (This turned out to be untrue – I ended up meeting her father later… with his new wife and family.
My situation was quite different. I was close to my family, I was in an active band in Austin, had a stable and rewarding job with a large circle of friends. Kristin and I met in person a few times – sometimes she would fly to Austin, sometimes I would fly to Knoxville. She decided she was going to move to Austin to be with me. I proposed to her, and she accepted.
On Mother’s Day weekend, in May of 2008, I flew up to Knoxville, and we drove her car and a moving truck back to Austin. At the time, she did not seem to have many friends or family support. I did not have the desire to have a big wedding, nor did I want her to have to go through a wedding where it was just a bunch of my family and friends there, so we got married by Judge Scott Davis (who was then retired) on June 28th, 2008 – on his property in the Texas Hill Country.
I suppose some may be wondering why we got married so quickly. She wanted to have kids sooner rather than later, and I did not want to cohabitate nor have children out of wedlock. I was in love, and it seemed to me like the right thing to do at the time. We bought a house together in 2009, and our daughter was born that December.
Our relationship was rocky, to say the least. There were many good times, but there were bad times as well. She would often get angry for seemingly no reason, telling me not to come home from work. I would just stay at a friend’s house most of those times. There were several times she became upset to the point where she would get violent with me, punching in the face, breaking things, or throwing objects at me… but I just chalked it up to her being pregnant and hormonal at the time. I convinced myself that things would get better once her hormones settled down.
In April of 2010, my father became suddenly and unexpectedly ill, and passed away on April 23. By June 4th, she had kidnapped our infant daughter and abandoned the marital home. Obviously 2010 was a pretty rough year for me.
Regardless of the fact we had our arguments, I could not fathom how anyone could leave their spouse while they were still mourning the death of a parent. I asked around about what I could do about the situation – my pastor and elders at the church, my family and friends.. everyone told me that I needed to hire an attorney, so I did. My attorney told me I should file for divorce. I didn’t want to divorce my wife, I wanted her to come back. My attorney told me the only way I could do that would be to file a SAPCR – a Suit Affecting the Parent Child Relationship – so against my attorney’s advice, that’s what I did. What came to follow was the most difficult time in my life.
In the SAPCR I filed on 6/10 I did not ask for “full custody” or anything like that. It was simply a legal request for her to come back home. with my daughter.
Her response to the SAPCR was to file an Emergency Petition on 6/21, full of lies and false allegations.
1) I never abused her or my daughter.
2) I never “demanded” that her and my daughter leave the house at that time.
3) I did change the security codes on the house and tell her about it, but that was only after I knew she was coming back – I did not want her coming by and emptying out the house while I was at work. The “don’t come home” statement, whenever that was sent, was an ironic one because it was a common phrase told to me when she was upset… I spent many nights on my buddy’s couch during the course of our marriage.
4) I did not “throw her against the wall”. What really happened on June 3rd, was that she was doing everything she could to provoke a fight [1] [2]. On the night of June 3rd, she had started beating me again, so I barricaded myself in the bedroom. She tried desperately to break into the bedroom, damaging the door. She even tried to pry it open with something, but I had wedged my dresser between the door and the wall to keep it from being opened. It would have taken a fireman’s axe to get through. Still, she tried for a while to bang on the door, throwing herself into it, and I imagine that is where she got some of her bruises. The “cuts” on her leg were actually from a dog bite, because when she had first started hitting me my dog Blue got protective, who I had to pull off of her.
It is true that I broke a window at one point to get into the house she had locked me out of (it was my house and my window to break), but that happened long before our daughter was born, and it was during one of her irrational temper tantrums. I was not “drunk and stoned” or anything like that. I was just coming home from work, and I had warned her that I was going to break the window if she locked me out before I even got over there.
5) I do recall removing her from our bedroom at one point. She was having another tantrum, but I proceeded to go to bed in our bed anyway. We had discussed making it a rule that we would “never got to bed angry”, one many successful marriages follow. She started hitting me, kicking me, and trying to remove me from the bed, so I grabbed one of her legs while she was kicking me and dragged her out of the room. It was the only room in the house that had a lock on the door, and I was tired of being assaulted. I have pictures of the injuries she caused, but I don’t really think they prove anything.
After I locked the bedroom door, I heard the front door of the house open and slam shut. She left the house, and just started walking off. She was not nude, but she wasn’t wearing much. I got into my truck and followed along side of her on Duval Road in Austin, begging her to get in the truck and come back to the house. She eventually did, but only after a good mile or so of following her in the truck and pleading with her to come back home.
6) This one is almost funny, claiming I’m some sort of drug dealer or something with my “massive amounts of marijuana”. What her petition claimed, and she later testified to, was that she “recently discovered, to her surprise” that I was on probation. When she made these claims though, she forgot that she had left her old phone at the house, with text messages on it proving that she knew all about the DWI I had pled no contest to many years beforehand. Her criminal record was not much different, if not worse – she had her own DUI just few months before we started talking, and even almost killed someone in an accident.
9) Why on Earth would I refuse to fix my own air conditioner during a Summer in Texas? Anyone who lives in Texas will tell you that this is just something that happens when it gets really hot, and sometimes it takes a day or two to get someone out because HVAC folk get busy.
13) I never “threatened to abuse” anyone. She had a job in Austin that she left behind, and I had offered her the use of the house. Her step-father, Rick, was the one making threats, not me.
It was AFTER that, three days later, that she filed this, full of more fabrications that I have already proved to be false. Yes, I had removed my shotgun from the house and given it to my parents, because I did not feel safe with it around because of her violent nature. Consider this though: if I was such a violent, dangerous person, that she was fearing for her life and running away from, why would she file that AFTER she was served with the SAPCR? Why would her hand-written form get filed three days AFTER the emergency petition? If I had been so violent with her in the past, why did she never call the police? If I WAS going to do something violent, why would I go through the trouble of hiring an attorney and filing a SAPCR in the first place? Why would she even need an order of protection from someone who was 1000 miles away, and if I did actually have those sorts of intentions, what is that piece of paper going to do to protect her anyway?
The truth is, she simply wasn’t happy in the relationship. Her mom would consistently tell her to leave me. She was caught between her mother and me, but still assured me that she would get over it… on several different occasions. Still, she was getting homesick… even though she would also tell me that she did not want to move to Tennessee (audio)… but then go back to telling me that she wanted to leave (audio). She even threatened to commit suicide at one point. She would always apologize though, as these sorts of emotionally unstable people often experience these things in cycles, again and again. Often, her mood would flip in just a few hours, and for seemingly no reason. I tried getting her to go to marriage counseling, but she stopped showing up.
Even right after my father died, the fact that I was mourning my father’s death did not stop her from trying to provoke me into a fight [1] [2] [3]. That particular night (the 15th), I had a flight home from a work trip that was delayed, so I got stuck in Dallas. I had found a group of others that were trying to make it home to Austin that night, so we rented a car together and just drove. As you can see, for some reason, that really upset her.
Her testimony during the order of protection hearing was clearly perjury, other than the fact that she admitted to being violent with me. Obviously, the order of protection was dismissed, even though I did not have all the evidence put together than that I do now, but her story has not changed. She still to this day, over a decade later, is perpetuating these lies that I was some sort of alcoholic woman beater.
By the time the divorce hearing came around, I was completely broke. I couldn’t afford an attorney anymore and had to represent myself. That cost me a great deal in a lot of ways. For one, it meant I could not get all the above evidence into court, including the court-ordered psychological evaluation, as well as my chemical dependency evaluation. Both of these contradict Kristin’s testimonies, and they indicate that she has emotional problems.
In spite of being pro-se, I managed to read enough and figure out how to file a Motion for Contempt because Kristin had violated several of the Travis County Standing Orders (attached to the bottom of the original SAPCR) as well as some of the temporary orders. Funny enough, this actually impressed the judge, because getting a setting for something like that isn’t exactly as easy as making a phone call. After reading through the Texas Family Code and the Texas Rules for Civil Procedure, I just “followed the instructions” more or less. First, I filed a the Motion for Contempt with the court. Then, I wrote up a Show Cause Order. I then took that order along with a file-stamped motion and went to the courthouse during open bench hours. I had to sign in to “get in line” and wait a few hours for my turn, but once the judge read it over he signed the order. Once I had that order, I went back to the court house with the signed order, set a court date, and took copies of all the documents to a Travis County Constable to get a citation. I then found a process server and had Kristin and her attorney served with the documents.
When the date of the contempt hearing arrived, I was met at the court by the guardian ad litem and Kristin’s attorney. Kristin, who was legally required to be there, was not. Her attorney had filed a Motion for Continuance, and I since I had filed a response to his motion, he was still there early that morning to make sure his response to the contempt was filed and ready. What they were both telling me was, don’t do this. Judges don’t look kindly on people who take offensive action in court like that. It’s only going to hurt my case. I ended up giving in, so let that be a lesson to anyone else out there – do NOT give in to a narcissist. If you have the higher moral ground, you must adamantly keep your boundaries, or this will only empower them.
As it turns out, her attorney giving me that advice actually violates Rule 4.03 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. He admitted himself to doing this later in open court (page 26, line 3 of the divorce transcript) and should have faced disciplinary action from the Texas Bar Association, but he has since retired.
In retrospect, I should have just ignored them and pushed on with the motion. If you take a deeper, analytical look to the response though, there are some things to be gleaned. First of all, he makes the claim that the utilities were cut off on June 8th, 2010, before the SAPCR was filed. If that were true, that would mean that Kristin would have essentially done everything she could to cut off the utilities ASAP. According to her, she left on the 4th and drove down to Houston to stay with her cousin. The drive from Houston to Knoxville is a good 17-19 hours… so she would not have made it there until late the night of the 5th at the earliest. Additionally, in order to have the utilities cut off so quickly, a “rush order” has to be put in – if you just call to cancel your electricity they don’t send a guy out that day. These were all actions supposedly by a woman who was “afraid for her life” that I was going to come after her.
Mr. William H. Alberts, Kristin’s attorney in Texas, then argued that turning off my phone was not in violation of the standing orders, because a “cell phone” is not a “phone line”. In spite of the fact that such an argument is obviously asinine, the order clearly forbids in 3.14 “Terminating or in any manner affecting the service of water, electricity, gas, telephone, cable, television, or other contractual services, such as security, pest control, landscaping…” no where does it actually say “phone line”. In Mr. Alberts’s defense, he does have the obligation to give his client the best representation he can, but he also has the duty to be honest… so it’s a game of “how honest can you lie”.
Mr. Alberts also argues that Texas has no authority to enforce a Tennessee order. I will also take an opinion that is somewhat congruent with his in the sense that I think it’s ridiculous that a judge in some other state 1000 miles away, that I had only visited twice over two years beforehand, has some authority in the matter over incidents that did not even occur in his state, and no parties involved were residents of. For example, let’s say that you and a former business associate lived in Ohio, and this associate made the claim that you owed him money. Would it be in any way appropriate for him to file a suit against you in Florida? The whole thing was a circus. Two judges in different states hearing the same suit over speakerphone? It’s also interesting to me that the order in Tennessee and the order in Texas were vastly different in opinion, even though they were rendered just days apart from each other. Ironically, the judge in Tennessee at the time seemed to give an opinion that was more in my favor, which just goes to show how subjective these things are.
The actual orders given by the court, her attorney took some “liberties” with, and added a bunch of things to her advantage before having the final order signed by the judge – something else that should have faced disciplinary action.
In the end, the judge said that Hannah was going to stay in Tennessee, because she had more of a support network there. Since my dad had just died, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Kristin and her attorney had made the case to the court that she was going to be living next to her mom and step-dad, but that did not turn out to be the case at all… not even a year had passed and she had already moved, sometime “near the end of 2011” according to her deposition in July of 2012. She testified that she had moved to a new location, renting the place from a landlord by the name of “Leslie Pridemore”. What she didn’t realize was that before the deposition, my daughter had told me about some new man being around. Kristin did not know that I had found a picture of them, as well as a picture of him with my daughter a month beforehand… simply by typing “kentuckykris” into Google (her known internet moniker) which popped up on PhotoBucket. As it turns out, Glen’s full name is actually Leslie Glen Pridemore… a “friend of the family”. Is that true? Difficult to say, since according to the property tax records, Glen, or Leslie, never even owned the property.
How many times does one have to lie under oath before they are impeached by the courts?
Regardless, for years I tried to continue to fight for more time with my daughter in court, but it was ultimately denied. I’m still here though, in Tennessee, for my daughter. All I can do at this point is continue to be here for her, defend the truth, and expose the lies. I am NOT an alcoholic woman-beater. Even Kristin knows, deep in her heart, that she is not being honest about that. She knows that she concocted all of these allegations just to manipulate the system and get away with what she did. Eventually, the truth always comes to light… even if it takes decades, it will catch up to you.
No matter what happens, daddy will always love you Hannah. I pray that none of this turmoil has affected you.