MADISON CT — The teenagers came home. But they may be forced back out again.
Mia (16), Matthew (16), and Sawyer (13) reunited with their mother, Karen Riordan, after living three years with their father, Christopher Ambrose.
The CT divorce and custody case, Ambrose v Riordan, was Frank Report’s entree into Family Court. FR published a series of stories detailing how Chris Ambrose secured the removal of the three children from their home with their mother and got the Court to force them to live with him – much against the children’s wishes.
Three years later, the children fled.
Mia left his home on April 22. Matthew left on May 22 and Sawyer on July 4 – Independence Day.
Christopher Ambrose wants his three teenagers arrested and returned to him, despite their disclosures of his abuse and their clearly expressed desire to remain with their mother, Karen Riordan.
Ambrose wants CT Family Court to force all three children back, prevent the mother from seeing them, and preferably have the mother arrested for custodial interference.
The teens cite their father’s abuse – sexual and psychological – as the reason for leaving. The two eldest went so far as to detail their allegations to law enforcement authorities in writing, including US Attorney Trini Ross, AUSA Charles Kruly, and FBI Special Agent Brian Burns.
On April 24, 2020 – more than three years ago – CT Family Court Judge Jane Grossman ordered a flip of custody, overturning Judge Eddie Rodriguez’s initial ruling that the mother should have primary custody.
She was their primary caretaker all their lives.
Karen with her children, Mia, Matthew, and Sawyer, before they were taken from her
The father was a well-known Hollywood screenwriter who was away most of the time, but returned to CT after his career imploded in 2018 when media reports emerged about his suspected plagiarizing of an episode of Instinct.
Ambrose reentered the children’s lives, transferred the joint marital money into his name, and then filed for divorce.
CT Family Court Judge Jane Grossman….
Judge Grossman’s flip of custody came on the heels of a custody evaluation report by Jessica Biren-Caverly, who decided the reason the children preferred their mother and feared their father was the mother’s fault.
Judge Grossman, ignoring evidence that the children wanted to offer about their father’s abuse, took the custody report at total face value – she never met the children – and altered their lives.
At ages 13, 13, and 9, they had a happy life with their mother, rich with extended family and friends and healthy extra-curricular activities. Without regard to their wishes, Judge Grossman, calling it “parental alienation”, decreed that the children must leave home that day and go with their father. She also added that the mother could not contact her children by phone, text,or in person.
Judge Grossman ignored Matthew’s treating therapist, Dorothy Stubbe, MD, who wrote, “There is no scientific evidence base that separating a child, even from an alienating parent, is in the child’s best interest if that parent is caring and the child has a strong attachment. It would be seriously detrimental, and I believe would result in higher levels of anxiety, frustration, anger, and ultimately depression for Matthew, if he is forced to become estranged from a beloved parent.”
But it is common in Family Courts in America to take mothers out of children’s lives – often based on a single report of a custody evaluator – frequently paid by the father – as was the case in the Ambrose matter.
When the family court finds parental alienation, it often evicts mothers from homes and hands children to a father who never took care of them before – and plunges the children into sudden change and usually grief and mourning.
It is then up to the father to alienate the children from the mother, so they won’t miss her as much.
Curiously, in family court, the father’s alienation after the Court removes the mother is rarely considered relevant.
The Court does not consider the children’s wishes.
Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist, who studied the Ambrose case, said, “Separating growing children from their mother and primary caregiver is one of the worst forms of abuse, which can have lifelong ramifications, as well as decades of loss of life for each child.”
In this case, even after three years, the father was unsuccessful in alienating the children from their mother. As soon as they were old enough – and when things hit new lows with what they claim was the father’s abuse – they left.
They went to their mother, who took them in.
Now, the father seeks the mother’s arrest and forcible return of the teens who wish to be with their mother.
The Family Court hearing is tomorrow. Judge Eddie Rodriquez, Jr. will preside.
Ambrose will be there with his attorneys. The mother will be there alone, representing herself. The Court will not permit teenage children to testify.
Based on his contempt papers, Ambrose’s attorneys will argue the judge should put the mother in handcuffs, and order the Madison Police to go to the mother’s house, break down the door if necessary, and take the kids – handcuff and shackle them if necessary – and force their return to the father.
Ambrose did not disclose in his contempt motion how he intends to guard the teens 24/7 if the judge grants his request to arrest his teen children to forcibly return them.
Ambrose has addressed one matter with the Court.
He demands the court rule that if the children even talk to their mother, let alone return to her, the Madison Police must put the mother in jail.
Matthew, 16, studies papers his father filed to force him to leave his happy home with his mother and return to his home, against his wishes.
Matthew vows not to go voluntarily to his abusive father and in a recent email to Ambrose, which Matthew forwarded to Frank Report, he wrote:
From: Matt Ambrose
Date: Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 9:41 PM
Subject: Chris Ambrose
The level of torment you have subjected us to for three years is unfathomable. You knew it would come to this. We are finally in a safe environment, but you are trying to send us back, but for what reason? So you can tell my sister to kill herself more, to call her fat, and that she should be ashamed of herself? So you can tell Sawyer that mom has done “some messed up things” and you’re trying “not to get her arrested,” while sending a flurry of cops whenever you feel like, just to threaten us?
You do not care for the wellbeing of your children, or else Mia and Sawyer would have never cut themselves, I would’t have to get high all the time, just to escape the evil reality that you put us through. You can’t rewire us into believing that our mother, who has never made me feel anything but joy and happiness, is someone who needs help. Why you feel the need to lie about irrelevant events is something I still cannot wrap my head around.
You say that Mia got “jumped” because of the Frank Report, even though it was because she had an argument with her friend. You say that I have a bad relationship with my mother and that’s why Im depressed, even though the only reason (I) WAS depressed is because you ripped us from the only person who cared for us.
I tried rebuilding our relationship back in 2017, when I would try to tell you to stop mocking me and calling me names, only for you to continue doing it for 6 more years. You robbed all of us of three years, of my childhood, and we are never getting that time back. You lost any form of relationship with us when you took us from our mother on April 24, 2020.
You are a failure of a “father”, an abuser, a liar, and a sick person. If it weren’t for the courage we had of getting out, one of us would have wound up DEAD because of all of the lies and toxicity that you have put us though. You should be ashamed.
Here is an audio of Matthew reading the email which he sent to FR. This young man is serious. He does not want to be forced back to a father he claims has abused him for years.
You can hear from Matthew’s voice that he is a young adult, not a child, and he ought to have say in where he wishes to live.
This is Part 1 of a new series we will be featuring today and in the next few days. A major national publication is expected to report on the story in the coming days. On the heels of Catherine Kassenoff’s shocking story, the interest in family court reform is enormous.
FR will have a reporter on hand to film and live feed to social media the arrest and forcible removal of the children from their mother’s home by police if Ambrose succeeds in family court.
Stay tuned for Part 2 later today.
Readers are about to witness a breaking national news story. Imagine, if it happens, the gripping emotional scene as police take three teenage children by force in handcuffs, drag them out to police cars as if they were criminals, and force them to return to their father.
Short of handcuffs and dragging their bodies to police cars and into their father’s home, these teenagers are not going.
As the nation watches, this video is almost certain to go viral.
