i saw a girl the other night who told me she is about to start a legal battle to get custody of her doughter (5 years old)
she provided before she was married and once she got devorced she went back to the oldest proffesion.

she has reviews on ter and get one every week or so. will being an active escort hurt her chances of getting custody?
i told her i would think a judge would not grant her custody untill she was out of the business for a few months, but then again you never know if the judge is a hobyist as well.
btw she does incall at her own home i told her she would either need to switch to outcall or get a trick pad no way a 5 year old could live in an incall location

The mother commits multiple felonies every week and you wonder whether that will hurt her chances of regaining custody?  Be serious.  Even if she didn't charge money and just had a really active sex drive, her level of activity would hurt her chances.

Even if the judge IS a hobbyist he won't overlook what she does for a living.  What do you expect him to do?  Say in court that he sees working girls himself now and then and doesn't consider it a big deal?  And even if he doesn't actually admit to it, ignoring this aspect of the mother's life would get him reversed on appeal.

Since the ex must know what she's doing it's a safe bet that the court will find out.  Unless the ex has some real problems of his own which make letting him raise the girl seem even worse than letting the mother do it, I don't think she has much of a chance.

What she needs to do is consult with a family law attorney.  This board can only help so much, and she needs guidance beyond what she can get here.

Although providing is not a felony, I agree with sidone's assessment.  Custody has already been established with one parent so it would be difficult for anyone to gain full custody, unless of course the custodial parent is convicted of crimes, has a documented drug/alcohol problem, or beats the child.  The best shot is probably jont custody, but the standard is best interests of the child.  If mom is a provider, there's little chance for her unless she stops providing, gets a "normal" job, and stays away from providing.  If dad knows about her providing, it will come out in discovery, and even if he doesn't know, it still could come out because mom will have to account for her income.  Her financial records are fair game, so if she uses a bank, there will be a trail of unaccounted for cash deposits.  Even if she doesn't use a bank, she will have to provide an adequate explaination of how she pays her bills.  Whether the judge hobbies is irrelevant, and he may even go down on her harder if he does to mask his tracks.  If she is serious about custody, she should get a "normal" job, file for visitation for now, and try for custody an maybe a year.  Doing it now risks a lot of potential embarrassment for her and may create a record that will hurt her chances in the future.  As an aside, when dad first gained custody, it was established that giving dad custody was in the best interests of the child.  If providing didn't come up, I suspect other possible criminal activity on mom's part, or a drug/alcohol problem did or mom probably would have been granted joint custody.  Whatever the factors were at the time, mom will need to show she has corrected them.

i made a mistake she is just trying to get visitation rights

depends on how discreet she is

if she has no police record and blurs her face from website, who can prove she is an escort

she needs to keep her real home spotless, dress conservative, "belong" to a church and do some community service and she should have a good case

need more info about her situation

Again, there is a reason she was not given visitation in the first place, and if she hasn't addressed that issue, she is wasting her time.  If she has addressed the issue and the dad isn't an a-hole, he may not contest "reasonable" visitation.  If there is going to be a fight, she needs to stop providing because although the source of her income is not at issue for visitation, it will be if there are insinuations that she may have income from illegal activity to which the child could possibly be exposed.  She needs an agressive family law attorney well versed in custody battles and she has to disclose all her issues to the attorney.

Lawtalkinguy is right and I goofed.  Prostitution is not a felony.  He and I seem to agree about the rest, though I think he chose his words poorly when he said the judge might "go down on her harder" if he's a hobbyist.  Or not.  It depends what he was trying to say.

On the brink's new information that the lady is just trying to get visitation rights means that her problem is more serious than I had thought.  If the court denied her visitation the first time around it must believe she is a serious risk to the girl's welfare.  I'm not sure what she can do to change the judge's mind, and I would need to know a lot more details before I could even suggest something.

I understand wannarideher's comment, but it seems that the court already knows mom is a provider.  Why else would it have denied visitation?  If it didn't know she escorts and had some other basis for denying visitation then she has multiple problems and needs to consult a family law specialist to see what can be done, if anything.

"Lawtalkinguy is right and I goofed.  Prostitution is not a felony."

Sidone, are you a lawyer? Paralegal? What kind of legal training do you have? That's a pretty big goof.

Lighten up on Sidone - I don't practice criminal law except when established clients call me in the middle of the night to inform me they were picked up for DUI/kid busted for possession/someone needs to get out of jail.  For the regular citizen, the misdomeaner/(minor) felony distinction is not a big deal.  In the context of this thread, if a non-custodial parent is regularly engaged in criminal activity (soliciatation), then chances of gaining visitation are very slim if that fact comes out, which is what Sidone was saying.

I agree, but keep in mind what the question was.  It wasn't "Is prostitution a misdemeanor or a felony?"  It was, more or less, "Will being a prostitute affect a divorced woman's chances of gaining custody of her child?"  My answer was, more or less, "Of course it will!"  Whether the crime is a felony or misdemeanor was beside the point.

I made a mistake in my introductory sentence, and when it was pointed out I acknowledged the error and thanked the person who pointed it out.  These things happen sometimes.  This time it happened where several people could see it.  As far as I know I almost never slip up like that when I'm talking about the law, but the key word there is almost.  No one bats a thousand in life.  I don't claim to be infallible, but I am willing to admit my mistakes when I make them.  Hopefully that's good enough.

-- Modified on 2/23/2005 4:33:52 PM

-- Modified on 2/23/2005 4:34:59 PM

Nice reply but you didn't answer my question.

That's because I thought your questions were rhetorical.  I'm a licensed attorney in California.

Not a criminal attorney (I hope)?

There are those who would say "criminal attorney" is redundant.  You're welcome to search my prior responses if you want to assess my skill level, as is any other reader.  I'm not interested in revealing details about myself or my practice here, so I'll leave it at that.