Anyone know anything about a Unole E Quoni tribe?
Mother battles county over custody of unborn child
MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/breaking_news/12816912.htmPOTTSVILLE, Pa. - Expectant mother Melissa WolfHawk worries about losing her baby boy to the county child welfare agency, which has threatened to seek custody after his birth to protect him from his father, a convicted sex offender.
"I am living every woman's worst nightmare - that when your child is born and you close your eyes for one second, if that baby isn't sleeping on your chest, you open your eyes and that child isn't going to be there," said Melissa WolfHawk, 31, on Tuesday during an interview in her Pottsville home.
At issue is her relationship with her husband of three years, DaiShin WolfHawk, who served more than a decade in New York state prisons for rape, attempted rape, sodomy and attempted sodomy in a case involving two teenage girls.
Melissa WolfHawk, now 8 1/2 months pregnant, obtained a temporary restraining order from a federal judge on Friday preventing the Schuylkill County Department of Children and Youth Services from contacting her during the next two weeks about the pregnancy. She, however, was ordered to notify the agency within 24 hours of the child's birth. The order also scheduled a hearing on her request for an injunction.
She also is fighting for custody of the couple's other child, a 21-month-old girl currently living with another family in Maryland, and believes some of her problems have been motivated by prejudice against American Indians. She said her husband's past does not worry her.
"If he was this miserable monster - and I've dealt with miserable monsters - I wouldn't be able to close my eyes at night, knowing I was carrying his child," she said.
An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents Melissa WolfHawk said the county government has no legal right under state law to question her about an unborn baby and said there is no concrete proof that DaiShin WolfHawk, 53, presents a risk to children.
"There's just no evidence in this case that Mr. WolfHawk has engaged in criminal acts against very young minors. And while the charges that were lodged against him in the early 1980s are not excusable, he certainly has paid his time for those crimes and has moved on," said ACLU attorney Paula Knudsen.
DaiShin WolfHawk, then known as John Joseph Lentini, pleaded guilty in his native state of New York in 1983, but he said contemporary news accounts depicted his actions as being far worse than they really were.
"I was guilty of stupidity," said DaiShin WolfHawk, who has nine children or stepchildren and seven grandchildren. "I'm not saying I was an angel. Maybe more like a Hells Angel."
WolfHawk describes himself as the chief of an American Indian tribe, the Unole E Quoni, which says it has 175 families in eight states but is not recognized by any state or by the federal government. He is currently unemployed and lives about 20 miles from the Pottsville home his wife shares with her father.
In the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, Melissa WolfHawk's lawyers said Schuylkill County Children and Youth officials violated her due-process rights by threatening "to 'take' her baby" and leaving notes on her front door saying they were monitoring her pregnancy.
Messages seeking comment from the agency's executive director, Gerard J. Campbell, and lawyer, Karen E. Rismiller, were not returned Tuesday.
But in a letter to Knudsen on Sept. 23, Rismiller confirmed that the department may seek custody of the boy once he is born.
"Schuylkill County Children and Youth Services believes this child's physical and emotional health is in danger because of the abuse perpetrated by the natural father against other minor children," Rismiller said.
Any removal of a child from his or her home requires a court order, said Stacey Ward, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, which licenses the county agencies.
"We take all factors of a household into consideration when determining whether or not an environment is one in which a child can live and play safely," Ward said. She declined comment about the WolfHawks.
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