Boston Parent Still Fighting to See His Children After Biased Court Decision

Spray-paint Man

Boston Parent Still Fighting to See His Children After Biased Court Decision
(link provided only for verification, entire spew posted here so no need to visit his site and jack his stats)

Protest Action by Mr. Andrew Steele, Boston
This are of the web site is about Mr. Andrew Steele. A Boston parent who lost any real contact with his four sons after a Divorce and wanted to make a peaceful statement about the violation of basic rights that occurred. I was able to speak to a good friend of his, Ms. Mandy Varona mandyvarona@yahoo.com who lives in Seattle and is familiar with Andrew and his history. I came away very impressed by his motivation and methods. This was a preplanned and thoughtful action his part. I encourage anyone, especially those in the Boston area, to contact Andrew & Ms. Varona.

December 10th, 2009: (Human Rights Day) The initial news report was:

"An unhappy parent was caught red-handed tagging a courthouse after being denied a holiday visit with his sons. Andrew Steele, 45, of Tacoma, Wash. used three cans of spray paint to write "Steele boys rights denied" in large letters on the Brockton District Court in Boston, Mass.... TheBostonChannel.Com & PatriotLedger.Com

Ms. Varona explained that Andrew had not planned to use regular spray paint! He was going to purchase cans "easy remove" paint -- the same type that is used to spray "Just Married" on cars.

He also prepared a two page "Purpose of Protest Statement" before his action -- which he knew was Human Right's Day, the start of Human Rights week. An excerpt from that statement:


PURPOSE OF PROTEST:

•My son rights have been and continue to be denied them.
•My rights have been and continue to be denied me.
•My children's mother's life has been made very difficult.
•Some family members have been and continue to be harmed.
FACT: Children need to feel special in Mom's life and Dad's. When they have this they do alright. When they are denied this they are at greater risk of having troubles. (click here to read complete statement)

CURRENT STATUS/CONTACT INFO:

"Mr. Steele was arraigned in Brockton, MA, court on charges of tagging, destruction over $250 and malicious damage. Steele was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 cash bail or $500,000 surety. He will return to court on Jan. 6." -- from TheBostonChannel.Com

I was told he does not plan on making bail and wishes to continue his protest as a prisoner. We encourage everyone to write him at:

Andrew Steele, #53441
Plymouth House of Corrections
Housing Unit BS1
26 Long Pond Rd.
Plymouth, MA 02360

He has a good friend, Ms. Mandy Varona. She is trying to help Andrew get as much publicity as possible. She is very familiar with his family background and struggles. She can be contacted at: Ms. Mandy Varona mandyvarona@yahoo.com , phone: (206) 313-9888

BACKGROUND:

For many years Andrew worked in construction. He married and the couple had four sons (who now range in age from 8-13). In his 40s he realized he would not be able to work construction for long and wanted to make a career change and become a Children's Book writer. He wrote and published one book (Amazon link below). His wife was not happy with this career change and sought divorce.

The divorce began in 2006 and almost immediately the Judge ordered "supervised visits" and Andrew could only see his four sons every other weekend, from 10am - 5pm, in a visit supervised by someone acceptable to his wife. There had been no type of threatening conduct on his part.

The divorce decree was issued in Nov of 2009 and no change was made to the visitation schedule or procedure. There was NO extra time for any vacations or holidays. Andrew had hoped for a return to more normal contact with his children -- this triggered his plan of action. (Click here for decree - NOTE: Andrew challenges the veracity of the some of the reported "Facts" listed. These documents are usually character assassination of the 'losing' party, but Andrew wanted to be completely upfront in the matter).

This story "sounds" so sad, right? Well Godbey in all of his infinite wisdom has provided us with enough information to investigate this on our own. He has given us the divorce decree (and that is shame on Godbey and Steele for publishing a document with the names of minor children available as well as putting their names in the public eye). Godbey has also given us Steele's statement concerning the protest vandalism of the courthouse. Steele states through his spokesperson (how nice that an alleged criminal has a spokesperson as if he were some sort of celebrity - well I guess in FR eyes he IS a celebrity) that he did not INTEND to use permanent spray paint. Temporary or permanent, he STILL engaged in the act of vandalism. He took the cans of paint and painted ALL OVER the outside of the courthouse regarding HIS rights. The judge investigated through testimony in their divorce trial, which parent would be a residential parent and exactly when the children should be with the parents. This is not about the children's rights being denied, this is about an angry father.

How angry you might ask? Here are some excerpts from his divorce decree:

The children have been upset by the upheaval in the family structure and their father's long term, long distance absences. They have also been upset by their father's discussion of the divorce with them, as well as his tearfulness in their presence.

The party's oldest son XXXXXX (*) was diagnosed with epilepsy in the summer of 2007. As of the time of trial, Husband had not attended any of his son's doctor appointments or medical tests. Wife has diligently kept him informed regarding same. Wife sought conventional medical treatment for XXXXXXX (*). When she sought Husband's input and comments, he suggested neuropathic treatment for XXXXXX (*). He does not provide any information as to why neuropathic treatment would be better for XXXXXX (*). All he does is send website addresses to her.

On June 22, 2007, in response to Wife's report that XXXXXXX (*) may need glasses by age 10, Husband replied, "as for XXXXXXX (*), he needs to spend less time looking at things up close; he needs to spend time with me in the mountains".

There are even more disturbing or questionable things in this decree. He alludes to suicide attempts in voice mails to his wife and his mother (notice HIS mother, not HER mother). He dropped the insurance requirement because the cost had tripled and his reasoning is that the boys need him now more than they need money after he dies. He was also downright nasty to her when she asked if he had a response to the proposed marital settlement agreement. His answer to that simple question?

"When you see heifers in your back yard and hear some fat lady singing. Actually if you do see cows in your backyard let me know that would be quite a sight. And fat women have beautiful voices and do amazing things for our country.

He also compares the fact that the courts wanted to protect the children from instability to the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis because according to him, he thinks she does not feel he adds up to her standards. So what are her standards? Well before he went on a soul searching mission to write a very unsuccessful children's book (more on that later), he was a highly recognized and skilled carpenter. He created projects in high end homes before quitting that to write a children's book. After this unsuccessful journey, he went back to work as a carpenter, but not in high end homes.

He had not paid any of his child support or alimony (wife stayed home with the children and worked sporadically part time) for 18 months and total arrearages was more than 34,000 dollars.

It is also stated in the court order that the Husband's behavior became more and more erratic, he was not able to balance emotions and reason and he was behaving in a passive aggressive fashion towards his Wife.

The decree also states (the thing he is complaining about in his graffiti is his visitation) that his visits have been sporadic at best and future visits should be supervised by a third party (reading between the lines here but the passive aggressive behavior must have been of more concern than was let on as Wife did not have to supervise the visits). The judge did award visits with the children and father to occur on the first and third Saturdays from 10AM to 5PM and any other times as pre-arranged. He is also allowed to phone the children any day (every day) between the hours of 4PM and 8PM. He is also able to have all medical and school records, he just has no legal right to direct their care or education (due to his instability mentioned earlier).

The Wife gets the proceeds from the sale of their home and the tax refund, and the arrearages are reserved.

The husband also gets to claim all four children on his taxes every year, so long as he remains current on his child support obligation. They have numerous debts which the judge splits between the two of them. He must maintain insurance of 250,000 with wife as irrevocable beneficiary.

For the behaviors listed (and there are many more in the decree published and available online, this is actually not a bad deal. The judge could have granted RO's, he could have said the father is not allowed to talk to or see the children until he goes through counseling. There is no mention made of any counseling needing to be undertaken.

Now you must be wondering why Petunia is writing about this? So far most of this is pretty ordinary accusations. Well, the book is the deal breaker. The book he wrote is what is getting Steele his own spotlight page in Petunia's pen. What is this book you may ask? Well, you can go HERE to check it out.

Product Description
The discovery of an alternate reality in outer space is linked to self-discovery in this story of the four Roar boys, who live in an orphanage in Brooklyn. When they are mysteriously recruited for spaceship pilot training, the boys learn that their parents were once space explorers and may have held secret knowledge about life on other planets. As their training intensifies, the boys realize they must stay together at all costs to survive against the evil forces racing across the heavens toward earth.

The interesting part is in the reviews. We have one from a customer who purchased this book as a gift for his nephew:

I just bought this book for my nephew's birthday. And, he could not even finish reading it and wished to return it to the store. And, unlike the cover pictures, I could not believe the storyline is rather banal and characters are not-so-creative. The author probably tried to recap the brotherhood once he cherished in his time. But it is distracting and inconsistent in the story development. And, I don't find any genuine lesson that children can truly believe. Maybe the author did not believe in it or did not know how to engage himself with the readers-children. I would not recommend this book to any children I know. Major Disappointment!

This buyer has also reviewed several other products on Amazon.com. He (she) is attacked however by these reviews and comments:

I ordered The Galaxy Boys and the Sphere through Amazon.com a couple of weeks ago. The shipping date listed at that time was - and it still is - December 13, 2007. The delay in shipping is due to the book being hot off the presses. So, HSLee must have discovered the book somewhere, soon after it rolled off the presses, in the UK perhaps, because it is only now reaching the U.S from Europe. I've noted, and encourage all others who may read HSLee's review to do the same, that HSLee has never reviewed a novel, not a story for children, at least not on Amazon.com, though he has reviewed a couple of books on architecture, and some CDs, and some DVDs, and some electronic devices, and an exercise rope. One may learn about a person by what he purchases, and then reviews, and likes, or not. HSLee - we don't really know who he is nor where he lives nor what he does for a living - is unclear in his review as to whether he himself reviewed The Galaxy Boys and the Sphere or if he left it up to his nephew. If he left it up to his nephew, how old is his nephew? What kind of boy is he? We would think we could trust an adult's opinion, but maybe this boy just doesn't like to read, though we can't know that. Or perhaps HSLee himself doesn't really like to read, or just doesn't like to read a story like The Galaxy Boys and the Sphere; we can't know his tastes, because, as pointed out above, he has not reviewed any other literature, on Amazon.com at least. Finally, if HSLee is to call a work amateurish, perhaps he should spell amateurish correctly and not as he did, 'amaeurish'. I look forward to reading this book, when it arrives, and encourage all others to seek a way to form their own opinion. The only way to do that, in my opinion, is to read the book, if it appears to be something in which you are interested.

and the original reviewer answered with this:

Is Sally Withers(reviwer below mine) = the author, Andrew Steele? or his publisher?

First, you pointed out that I misspelled the word, Amateurish, I did not see the error as it was in the title blank but corrected it, thank you.
Now, your turn, you typed, Charles Rose to be a tallented architect. HAHA. And, your writing is no better than me. So, who is lecturing whom?

This person who left a very aggressive comment in my first review of this book seems to know when and where the books were published in USA or UK with given dates. And, that very person claims he(oops, she) also knows Charlie Rose, the local Boston Architect, the book of whom I left a review on Amazon.com quite a while ago. Then he/she definitely went over my other reviews to figure out what I buy and who I am. Wow, that is bullying. Check his comment(false accusation) in my review for Charles Rose Architect(paperback) to see it yourself. Sally Withers must be from Boston, not from Northwest as she says.

And, Sally Withers, now the second reviewer of this book(the Galaxy..) left a 5/5 rating describing the book as if she is either a child with a extensive vocabulary skill, rather close to the words the author uses in his book and the style.
If she was a genuine parent, you know her review doesn't sound right but it rather sounds like the abstract of the whole book. How strange!

If Sally Withers works for the publishing houses or the author, his/her rating should be invalidated, faking the company's promotion as a positive 5/5 review from a buyer. Or, if Sally Withers is indeed the actual author, you don't have any decency to leave any room for the readers to judge. What kind of person are you to pretentiously leave the 5 star feedback to your own work?

Coincidentally, the third person, Nancy Harter, is also from WA; Sally Withers herself is from Northwest and so is the author!!! And the both the second and the third reviewers do not have any other reviews on amazon.com. They created their user name to promote the book.

Even Nancy Harter wrote the book review way before me. Why didn't you accuse her of not reading the book and writing a review with the same accusation toward me, which is false? Isn't that because they both were written to promote the book? a Nice try!!! And, thanks for allowing me to track you all down because of your own trick to frame my genuine reviews.

On the other hands, I have a great history in writing reviews over many years, yes, mostly on small gadgets and electronics, books(amazon.com knows) and toys for my new nephew and nieces in recent years. So, whose opinion is more credible, Mr. Author?

...My conclusion, Sally Withers, Nancy Harter are Andrew Steele, the author of this book, for simply showing that level of aggression and disclosing the detailed release dates and where the books are sold in the comments in my review(please check it out and judge yourself) but I still cannot tell how Sally(the author?) knows that particular architect in Boston, or is she/he simply lying to invalidate my book review? If Sally Withers is not Andrew Steele, are you the author's wife or the publisher's wife?

You really started a very ugly game and only showed me a mean, lying,controlling personality. Who are you really? Shouldn't you have a good heart to write a children's book?

Whoever you are, don't you bully a genuine review! Why can't you accept that the kid did not like how the book reads? Stop this mean act! This is getting too ridiculous.

Neither of the individual reviewers who raved about this book have any other reviews on Amazon.com. She then goes on to attack the negative reviewer on another of his reviews. Links are all below:


Link to divorce decree
Link to the statement of purpose (reason for the graffiti)
Spray Paint Story Link 1
Spray Paint Story Link 2
Google search results for stories on incident (over 19,000 results)
Link to review of book by Nancy
Link to review of book by Sally
Link to negative review of Steele's book
Link for Steele's publishing attempt
Attacks by Sally towards HSLee on a review of another book



You Tube - Police: Court Vandal Caught Red-Handed -- Literally