On April 22, 2023, 16-year-old Mia left her father, Chris Ambrose’s home.
Ambrose came home one day to find Mia fled his unhappy home.
Her flight from Ambrose occurred nearly three years after Judge Jane Grossman ordered her to leave her mother, Karen Riordan, and live with her father, Chris Ambrose.
Mia was 13 when her life was upended by her father’s use of the CT Family Court to remove her from the happy home she lived in with her mother.
Those were hard days for Mia, who said in a letter written earlier this year:
Family Court took my mother from my brothers and my life three years ago. I remember that day. In the morning, I had a normal day at my mom’s, and the next thing I knew, I was saying goodbye to her over text messages with no response because she wasn’t allowed to contact me.
I was 13 when my brothers [and I] were separated from our mom and forced to live with our father….
After I lost my mother… I was depressed… I was self-harming, cutting in eighth grade. I failed my third trimester of 8th grade. When I finally tried to participate in school online during COVID-19, he turned off the Wi-Fi but told the school I was refusing to participate.
I began using food as a comfort for what I was dealing with at my dad’s house. When I lived with my mom, I was athletic. I was in excellent shape. At my mom’s, I did gymnastics every week. But when I was forced to go to my dad’s, I was depressed. I was eating all the time. He chose to enable my eating habits by getting super unhealthy foods. The only food there was what he wanted at the house. I entered high school depressed and was taunted for my weight….
It was constant fear at his home. I would say something wrong, and my father would follow me around and refuse to leave my room or get mad at the simplest things. His anger would go from one to 1000 within a second. It was scary….
My father, who is white, called me a ‘beaner’ because of my Guatemalan heritage. He called me fat. He questioned my gender. He called me a bitch. He would say I’m dumb and a horrible sister to my brothers. One day, he told me to kill myself…
Chris Ambrose has threatened us constantly with the Madison Police, the state police and DCF. He’s told me I’d be put into foster care. He’s told us if we tell the truth, we’d all be in foster care and we’d never see our mom …
While I lived with my dad, he began grabbing my inner thigh when I was on the couch in front of my brothers. I would say not to do that. He would say, ‘Oh, it’s just a joke.’
Then it got to the point where he would grab my butt or my breasts. When I objected, he said, ‘Stop being a baby. It’s just a prank.’
I would walk to the bathroom. The next thing I knew, I was getting grabbed from behind. My father would grab my butt with his hand and squeeze it. I told my father I was uncomfortable with him touching me. He would say, ‘it’s just a joke. You’re being a baby.’
In the car, he would grab my inner thigh, keep his hand there, and squeeze me. I didn’t want him touching me. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said I was a crybaby and ridiculous and had no reason to act this way.
I’d say, ‘I do have reason to act this way. You’re touching me when I’m not comfortable with that.’
My room was in the basement at my dad’s house, which had no lock. My father started to come down when I was changing or taking a shower. It happened almost every day.
Sometimes, he would say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Then he would go into my bathroom for a second, come back out, and try to start a conversation while I was still trying to get dressed.
It happened so often that I yelled and said, ‘How come every time I’m changing or taking a shower, you have to come down?’
He said, ‘I have stuff to do in the basement.’
It got to the point where I would change in a locked bathroom because he would otherwise come in just when I was changing.
So, yes, Ambrose, now, that sterling father, is seeking to have Riordan arrested, and accuses her, without substantiation, of influencing Mia and her brothers not to return to his home.
Chris Ambrose won’t let his children live with their mother or allow them to be happy anywhere. He wants them all to himself.
He cannot understand, after making them so happy, that maybe it was their idea to leave his loving home with his too-free hands and his anger and nasty comments.
Yesterday, Mia, who will be 17 in three months, made a statement to FR. If any readers are offended by expletives than please stop reading here.
By Mia
Chris is goofy as fuck.
He said my mother “moved [us] from state to state, to stay with the [mother’s] friends and relatives.”
Are you kidding me, “moved?” I’m not an object you move. I choose with my own human will to leave because he’s crazy and kept trying to force us back.
He knows damn well if we get forced back it’s not willingly. It will be them dragging me out of the house screaming.
And doesn’t it sound odd a parent had to ORDER an order to PHYSICALLY REMOVE ME FROM THE HOUSE because I won’t go willingly?
Isn’t that disgusting he wants to do this? He’s threatened me time and time again that by me speaking out I’m “ruining my future.” How does me telling the truth about all the shit he did ruin my future???
When he came up to the house recently this fucker said I never drove his car for “midnight joy rides” and I was never an “alcoholic.”
You wanna tell that to my friends and hospital Chris? He’s a dumb fuck who thinks he can get away with acting like this because he pays off idiots like fucking Jocelyn [Hurwitz, the GAL]. That bitch never talked to me, tf [the fuck] you making choices for ME? I’m 16. I can make my own choice and my own mind.
Sorry for my language. I was silenced for three years and now I’m able to use the media to voice my anger. I have every right to be angry the courts messed up. They won’t silence me.
I guarantee if I’m forced back to his house I will be sent away and locked up. They already threatened me once: “your dad’s or you get locked up in a locked down facility in Middletown.”
They can threaten me all they want. I’ve dealt with it just fine. I’m still fighting and will continue to. No one’s brainwashing me. I haven’t seen my mother in three years. How is that even possible? Generally, are they so dumb they actually wanna believe it’s possible I was brainwashed by someone I HAVENT SEEN IN THREE FUCKING YEARS?
I genuinely don’t know what to say. He’s actually lost it. Generally he’s officially gone insane.
