Connatser, Patton Efforts Commemorate Polygamist Raid (VIDEO) Sunday, April 12, 2009 DALLAS -- What could possibly inspire Aubrey Connatser and Ramsey Patton to drive across West Texas on a sunny spring day in 2008? Of course, it was to act in the best interest of children, and more than 400 of them were seized in a raid on the polygamist ranch near Eldorado, Texas.
This massive use of attorneys ad litem, perhaps the great pro bono effort in Texas legal history, took place one year ago on April 3.
To commemorate the raid, Texas Super Lawyers magazine ran a cover story featuring Aubrey and Ramsey describing the unusual gathering of Texas attorneys in their issue on the top young attorneys in the state. What they saw were hundreds of attorneys crammed into Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo and a city hall auditorium a couple of blocks away for the first big hearing.
As Koons Fuller attorneys, Aubrey and Ramsey are well acquainted with the rules of family court. They spent much of their time explaining procedure to some of the many oil-and-gas and real estate lawyers who saw a need and helped to fill it. At the heart of things was Aubrey and Ramsey’s concern for children.
Jim Johnson, a longtime San Angelo attorney who worked with the two young women and gave them a place to stay when they couldn’t find a room in town, was quoted in the magazine piece about his young colleagues.
“They went out of their way to not just be a guardian ad litem for the children, but demonstrated an interest and a concern for that child. These two Dallas ladies are not just great attorneys, but great human beings. Anytime they want to come back, they’re welcome.”
A year after the seizure, most of the children have been returned to their parents, and the consensus among the attorneys involved and the courts is that the state acted rashly and probably could have found other means to make the children safe. But they believe the laws of the state worked in the end.
Aubrey and Ramsey were featured in the magazine piece on the anniversary of the raid, took part in several radio interviews, commented in a news segment distributed to stations all across the country by Associated Press Television, and were quoted in Texas Lawyer. Vanden Eykel Honored With CAP Center’s 2009 Spirit of Compassion Award Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Koons Fuller Managing Partner Ike Vanden Eykel, center, receives the Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Center's 2009 Spirit of Compassion Award from Margaret Patterson, Executive Director of the CAP Center, and Center co-founder Randy Michero.
The presentation took place Saturday, April 18 at the Center's 15th annual Celebrity Waiter Gala at the Hotel Palomar in Dallas. The award is given each year to a Dallas-area person who views child abuse prevention as a community responsibility. Ike is a long-time benefactor and a member of the Center's board of directors. KF Attorney Foils International Kidnapping Saturday, April 25, 2009 DENTON -- Nothing upsets Charla Bradshaw Conner quite so much as parents who disregard their children’s interests in order to do outright war with a spouse. Recently she helped uncover a trans-Atlantic parental kidnapping case in which the husband did just that.
A French woman, Cecile Sharp, was Conner’s client. There had been trouble between Ms. Sharp and her husband, Texas computer consultant Tim Sharp, but not enough to affect his visitation with their three children; Simon, 6; Emma, 7; and Chloe, 11. At the end of the weekend, Mr. Sharp did not return the children to their mother’s care and this set off an international game of divorce intrigue that ended recently when the husband and children were found in North Texas.
In a story in The Dallas Morning News on this case, Dallas County family court Judge David Hanschen said: “This is about as egregious a crime as you can commit without bodily injury.” Because of her husband's action, Mrs. Sharp did not see her children for more than nine months. During that time, she filed for divorce in France and French authorities indicted Mr. Sharp on charges of parental kidnapping.
Some time later, Mr. Sharp filed a divorce petition in Dallas County and that's when his wife got some idea where they were, since the court notified her of the impending action. She then hired Conner, who put a private investigator to work finding exactly where her husband and the kids where living.
"The investogator staked out Mr. Sharp's attorney's office and followed Mr. Sharp to Covenant Church in Carrollton," Conner says. "He picked up the kids at the school affiliated with the church and went a few blocks away to a house that we later learned was owned by the church."
Conner handles divorces in Denton, Tarrant and Dallas counties. She was on hand at the courthouse in Dallas when Mr. Sharp was apprehended by U.S. State Department officials just before a hearing was to take place in the divorce case. What happened next has a surreal quality that Conner says she will never forget.
"Judge Hanschen's concern was for the kids' safety," she says, "so he wrote out an order by hand on the back of a docket sheet that allowed me to go get the children at American Heritage Academy, the church-affiliated school they attended."
But school officials didn't believe the handwritten order was legitimate, and neither did the Carrollton police who soon arrived. They all felt this would be handled by federal marshals. Conner suggested they call the judge, who got in his car in the middle of a heavy rainstorm and drove to the school to sort things out.
To Conner, these actions occured none too soon. "When we got to the house where they were staying," she remembers, "there were three bags packed and sitting next to the door. They were ready to leave at a moment's notice."
Conner told the kids their father was working and they were going to go see their mother for spring break. "Doesn't that sound like fun?" she asked, and the children agreed. Conner took them to her home in Westlake and they were on their way back to France the next day. Soon, Tim Sharp was extradited back to France to face several charges, including kidnapping.
Click here to listen to Charla Conner interviewed about the kidnapping case on America Tonight |
