Manhattan
resident fights custody battle for daughter
Published on Thursday, July 26, 2001
By
Alyson Raletz
Kansas
State Collegian
All she wants is to get her daughter back.
Claudine
Dombrowski, a Manhattan resident, is fighting for the custody of her 6-year-old
daughter, Rikki, who is currently living with her father in Topeka.
Dombrowski
said she divorced her husband, Hal Richardson, in February 1996 because of
severe and repeated domestic violence towards her and her daughter.
During
the following years, Rikki went back and forth between living with her mother
and father.
In
August 2000, a judge awarded sole custody to Richardson.
She
went from being a full-time mother to only being allowed supervised visitation
one hour every Thursday and Saturday. She has to pay $9 for each visit to her
daughter.
She
said she suspects Rikki is still being abused at her ex-husband's home.
"When
I look at her now, she's almost unknown to me," she said.
"Her
eyes are sunken in and she has lost her smile. She is dead inside. There is no
more spirit left in her."
Richardson
had no comment.
Richardson's
lawyer, Don Hoffman, said he could not comment on many aspects of the case
because there are matters still pending in the courts, but Rikki's safety is
not an issue.
"Her
safety has never been seriously questioned the entire time she has lived with
Richardson," Hoffman said.
Dombrowski
is waiting for the Topeka courts to set a date for a custody hearing where she
will try to win back her daughter. She said she is trying to get as many people
as possible to attend the hearing because she feels it will help her case.
"If
we have enough of a turn out, I know I will get her back," she said.
"I think the judge will do the right thing and follow the law."
One
way, she has been rallying support has been through a Web site
that includes letters and documents she has gathered that show the injustices
of her case, she said.
"It
started out by just posting some e-mail attachments to a Webs ite, and then it
became a mission," Mukherjee said.
She
first posted the site on July 13, a Friday. Then, she said, she sent e-mails to
everyone and anyone she could think of with the site link.
"When
everyone got to work that Monday and checked their e-mail. That's when the
response to the site exploded," Mukherjee said.
The
site receives 2,922 hits a day and has had 9,187 individual visitors, she said.
The
site has also had visits from 18 different countries.
Besides
information about the custody battle, the site includes several graphic photos
displaying a battered Dombrowski and her daughter.
Mukherjee
said the photos get people's attention.
"You
can hear her say that your ex-husband beat her," she said. "But how
do you believe what she said? This is not a thwarted mother or some drug addict
mom messing with the system. This is real."
She
said she feels bad if the pictures trigger bad memories for other battered
wives, but hopefully they will be motivated to help.
"Sometimes
it gets really frustrating," she said. "But our whole reason for
doing this is that someone somewhere, will get the message, care and be in a
position to actually help."
Already
Dombrowski has been flooded with e-mails from children's advocate agencies,
battered women and others who are offering assistance. Senator Kent Glasscock
has even written a letter offering assistance, Mukherjee said.
Along
with the onslaught on responses, there have been problems. After its first
weekend, the there was an attempt to hack into the site and Dombrowski's computer
received eight computer viruses through e-mails that supposedly offered help,
she said.
"I
think we are pissing a lot of people off with the site," she said.
"That's OK. It's an emotional issue. As annoying as viruses are, we have
dealt with them. You can't expect everyone to be on your side."
