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In depth
summary: Please help us right this injustice and bring Noah home.
There
have been many people with questions about just how this all happened,
this is an in depth
summary:
Ways to help:
Contact news outlets by phone calls,
letters, or emails telling them that you want to see this story
rigorously followed by their news organization and that this story
and stories like this are important to you.
If you would like to be part of an action group to rally for Noah
Levi Bond's return home or even create your own action group to
rally for Noah Levi Bond please email me Ibbaanika Bond at friendsofnoahlevibond@yahoo.com.
If you feel lead to do so you can contribute financially by clicking
the donate button. (You don't need a pay pal accout to donate.)
Any amount helps, even $10 or less.
This case has cost over $500, 000 so far and it is a complete miracle
that we have been able to come up with the money. We have worked
multiple jobs and saved everything we can, and our family has helped
all they can, but its been incredibly hard.
I, Ibbaanika Bond, and my son’s
father, Craig Lentz, are fighting for the best interest of our son,
Noah Levi Bond. Three
years ago Megan and Stuart Taylor coerced me into signing away my
parental rights through legal fraud. I was in college when I found
out that I was pregnant. I told my family I was going on an internship
and hid my pregnancy from my family out of embarrassment and fear
of disappointing them. After my baby was born I met Eileen and Randal
Bakers who attended the International House of Prayer, a church
in Kansas City. The Bakers said that they wanted to help me “get
right with God” and help me break the news of my pregnancy
to my family. The Bakers introduced me to their friends Megan and
Stuart Taylor who also presented themselves to me as Christian people
who wanted to help me through this difficult time. In reality, when
the Bakers told them about me they saw an opportunity to take my
only child easily and inexpensively, although they have their own
biological children. The Bakers offered to let my son stay in their
house for a short time while I broke the news of my pregnancy to
my family. I was to take care of Noah during the day and Eileen
would take care of him at night.
When I brought Noah to Eileen and Randy's house Eileen took me aside
and told me that, as a condition for their help, I now had to sign
a childcare agreement with them for liability purposes in case anything
happened to Noah at their house. It would be evidence that I didn't
abandon him so that he wouldn't be taken into DFS custody. It was
hand written on a piece of stationary, which I signed. The Bakers
have since refused to give it to me, and it has never been produced
in court.
Without my knowledge the Bakers gave this piece of paper to the
Taylors who, along with Michael Mann, a lawyer that the Taylors
hired, who claimed to represent me though he didn't, went to court
behind my back and claimed that this piece of paper was a foster
care agreement, and that because he was a “foster child,”
the court had jurisdiction over my son. The paper I signed was not
a foster care agreement.
I had never signed
any retainer agreement with Michael Mann or any other agreement
that he represented me. Contrary to what the Bakers told me, the
true purpose of having me sign that paper was so that the Taylors
could go to court behind my back, claim that I was ready to relinquish
my parental rights and request that a family court commissioner
prohibit me from taking Noah out of “foster care.” Commissioner
Alan, the family court Commissioner residing over the case granted
the Taylors this legal hold. With the aid of the Bakers, the Taylors
and Michel Mann committed fraud in court to gain control over my
son and keep me in a position to be coerced because I had to go
through the Bakers to see my son.
Later, Eileen claimed that she had to go out of town to visit her
daughter and she couldn't take back the plane tickets. Randy Baker
wouldn't help me care for Noah and I didn't want him to go anywhere
else so I planned to just take my son home and I thought my family
would just have to find out this way. When I told Eileen what I
planned to do she told me that a Commissioner had said I was a bad
mother and placed a hold on my son, so I couldn’t take him
away from her home. She showed me part of the hold papers that had
been filed in court. There were two pages to the hold papers (though
I wouldn’t find that out until months later in court), one
that was the request by the Taylor’s that the hold be placed
on my child, and the other (the one Eileen Baker showed me) where
the judge ordered the hold. Eileen hid the first page from me because
she knew I would never sign away my parental rights if I knew that
the Taylor’s had been going to court behind my back to manipulate
my child away from me. Because I couldn’t take him home, she
said that if I didn’t move into her house my baby would have
to be cared for by another lady in a foster home and if anything
bad happened there my child would likely go to the state.
During the time I stayed at the Baker’s, Randy Baker, who
had not left town with his wife, constantly pressured me to relinquish
my parental rights, saying it was God’s will--using my belief
in God to manipulate me. My child was sick and I had to stay up
round the clock caring for him and Randy offered me no help. What
Randy did do was discourage me, saying that my lack of parenting
experience would not be good for my son, and that for my sons sake
I should just give him up. As a new mother experiencing postpartum
depression and exhaustion from lack of sleep this pressure was overwhelming.
I was eventually taken to the Baker’s and Taylor’s church,
the International House of Prayer where I received taped prophecies
that the Taylors later played repeatedly for me to finally convince
me to relinquish my rights against the will of my son’s father
Craig Lentz.
At the time the Taylors and Bakers were coercing me, my son’s
father Craig Lentz, who had been involved in his son’s life
from the time I found out I was pregnant and continued to call me
every day, was living and working in another town trying to find
work in Kansas City in preparation for raising our son. During our
phone conversations he began to suspect something was wrong and
came into town to see me. When he found out what the Taylors were
doing he met with them and pleaded with them not to try to adopt
his son. They told him they were going to adopt his son whether
he liked it or not and went to court the next day, claiming they
didn’t know who Noah’s father was, and got temporary
custody. Craig immediately hired a lawyer and brought a case to
gain custody of Noah. After the pretrial hearing for his case the
Jackson County Family Court put Craig and I under a gag order for
the next two years and threatened to throw me in jail if I ever
talked about what happened to me.
Once I got away from the Baker’s house I realized that I had
made the worst mistake of my life and went to court to revoke my
relinquishment, but the court denied my motions without so much
as a hearing or any other kind of consideration of the overwhelming
evidence of duress in my case. When the Taylors asked that a hold
be placed on my son in the first place, Commissioner Alan saw that
I wasn't at the court date, but didn't bother to verify whether
Michael Mann was really my lawyer. He didn't bother to verify whether
anything the Taylors were claiming about my intentions to relinquish
were true and he didn't question the Taylors’ need to have
a hold placed on my son if I really planned on relinquishing my
rights. He didn't even bother to verify the authenticity of the
fake foster care agreement the Taylors claimed to have but never
showed him, which supposedly gave him jurisdiction over the matter
in the first place. Instead of doing his job he gave the Taylors
control of a child who had a legal and custodial guardian who had
done nothing wrong, without even questioning it. When I tried to
revoke my relinquishment, Commissioner Alan had an opportunity to
right this wrong but he wouldn’t even do that. Commissioner
Alan actions were negligent and corrupt.
The corruption didn’t stop there. Craig never signed away
his rights and did everything the state said he had to do to establish
his paternity. The local family court said that under a new law,
section 453.030 of the Missouri Statutes, he had no right to his
son and would not allow him to present any evidence of his paternity.
Craig was on the birth certificate, and the local court would not
take that into account. He had a DNA test, and the local family
circuit court BARRED DNA FROM BEING ADMITTED. He had been involved
and supporting his son from the time he found out I was pregnant
but the local court deemed that to be inadmissible. They gave Craig’s
baby to the Taylors and threatened to throw him in jail if he ever
talked about it.
Craig’s case went to the Supreme Court of Missouri in December
of 2006. He won unanimously. The Taylors tried to have the Supreme
Court case put under a gag order but the Supreme Court denied their
request to gag the case. The Supreme Court found that it could never
be found that Craig abandoned his son. He had done everything the
state required to establish his paternity. The Supreme Court sent
it back down to the local court so Craig could present evidence
of his fitness as a parent and get his son back. When Craig got
back down to the local level, instead of letting him present evidence
of his fitness as a parent, Commissioner John F. Payne refused to
acknowledge the Supreme Court of Missouri’s finding that his
paternity had been established--that he had the same rights as any
married father under the Missouri State Constitution and the United
States Constitution. Instead he let the Taylors just file for a
third adoption petition which was almost identical to the other
two adoption petitions that they had already filed which were overturned
by the Supreme Court of Missouri. This was illegal. This child was
unadoptable without the legal father’s--Craig Lentz’s
consent. Craig's lawyer filed a motion for the dismissal of this
petition, but Commissioner Payne did whatever he pleased.
The Taylors first two adoption petitions which had been overturned
by the Missouri Supreme Court included abandonment and neglect as
charges against Craig and this third petition cited these same charges,
thus revisiting issues that the Missouri Supreme Court had already
decided on. The main reason that was stated on the third petition
for the adoption and termination of Craig rights were that he had
neglected and abandoned his son for 6 months prior to the filing
of this third petition for adoption. The Supreme Court had already
made a finding that he did not abandon his son. Craig was winning
in the Supreme Court three months prior to the filing of the Taylor's
new petition. He also sent a check for $450.00 for child support,
one of many support checks sent to the Taylors, though he was never
ordered to pay child support, which the Taylors received and signed
for a day before they filed this third petition for adoption. However
Commissioner Payne just gave an order for the date of filing to
be back dated six days and let them file the adoption petition anyway.
Then Commissioner Payne just kept scheduling hearings and at the
last minute he would cancel them. He canceled one for a procedural
reason a week after the Supreme Courts decision was finalized. Two
months later he canceled the hearing because he "had a divorce
that was running long" (this was illegal because according
to state law contested adoption proceedings are supposed to be heard
before all other hearings because the permanency of the child is
of utmost importance). Three months later Commissioner Payne gave
an all summer, three month long extension to the Taylors because
their attorney Cheri Cole Simpkins', 9 month old son might have
to have a tonsillectomy, which he never had. Commissioner Payne
was removed from the case for letting the Taylors have that extension.
The new commissioner, Molly Merrigan, tried to have a hearing at
the end of July but the Taylor's attorney Cheri Cole Simpkins said
that "no time would be good for her until the end of August,"
Finally, in August Commissioner Molly Merrigan was supposed to have
a hearing on the adoption and Craig’s fitness as a parent.
At that hearing she acknowledged, and gave an order stating, that
indeed Craig’s paternity had been established, and that it
had been a finding by the Supreme Court that he was Noah Levi Bond's
natural father and that his paternity was established. As such the
Adoption petition should have been dismissed then because Craig
was a fit parent and he did not consent to the adoption of his son.
Instead though, Commissioner Molly Merrigan refused to have a trial
and started a 211 DFS investigation for abuse on Craig even though
he had never abused or neglected his son and had never been accused
of any abuse, neglect, or wrong doing. At the cost of the taxpayers
Commissioner Molly Merrigan had Craig investigated up one side and
down the other—just like a person that committed child abuse
would be, only he never committed any abuse. She only gave Craig
supervised visitation—just like an child abusing parent would
get though there was never any abuse. A court date was then set
for October 22, 2007 where the petition for adoption was to be decided
and the abuse investigation was to be decided.
On October 22, 2007 the juvenile officer for the DFS dropped the
investigation against Craig because he had never done anything wrong
and he was a fit parent and the DFS therapist recommended a six
week plan for reunification with his son. As such the court had
no jurisdiction and they definitely should have given Craig’s
son back to him. But Molly Merrigan continued on with hearings on
the adoption petition. In court it was revealed that the Taylors
had actually been breaking the gag order that they had requested
for three years with a blog that chronicled the way that they planned
to steal baby Noah that was posted online. This blog also revealed
in their own words that they had been committing welfare fraud and
lying to the court about it, that they were mean to Noah when his
parents sent gifts, and that they were planning to flee the country
with baby Noah. In this blog Megan Taylor describes herself as semi-stable
and talks about how she wants Craig dead when he sends his son a
Christmas present because it would simplify her life. Though the
court allowed this to be entered into evidence, Commissioner Molly
Merrigan said that she thought it was normal for these things to
be written given the stress of the trial and that even though specific
information was posted about trial dates and their outcomes on the
internet Commissioner Merrigan said that she didn’t think
that the blog violated the gag order.
On January 1, 2007 Commissioner Molly Merrigan terminated Craig’s
parental rights for the exact same reasons that the Supreme Court
had already overturned the earlier petition. She directly defied
the Supreme Court of Missouri and cut off all visitation that Craig
had with his son immediately. Craig didn’t even get a chance
to tell Noah good-bye.
Craig had been visiting with Noah twice a week in Craig’s
home for seven months, planning for Noah’s homecoming. Noah
is a very sweet boy and has gotten very close with his father and
his grandmother as well. He told them 'I love you' all the time.
He has his own room at Craig’s home that he calls his room,
with toys he picked out and furniture bought just for him. Now his
room sits empty and according to Commissioner Molly Merrigan Craig
will never see his son again.
This is a kidnapping. The Supreme Court of Missouri already decided
that Craig was Noah’s legal father. He did everything he was
supposed to, as required by the state, to establish himself as Noah’s
legal father--as was found by the Missouri Supreme Court. Through
a DFS investigation the state has declared him to be a fit father
and found that he never abused or neglected his son. Commissioner
Molly Merrigan cannot just terminate Craig Lentz’s parental
rights and cut him out of his sons life forever just because she
feels like it. That is illegal--and that is what she is trying to
do. She is defying the Missouri state Constitution, the US Constitution,
the Supreme Court of Missouri and the Missouri state laws governing
adoption. This Commissioner must not be allowed to assist in the
kidnapping of this child, she must be stopped. This court has wasted
a year of Noah Levi Bond’s life.
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