Parental Alienation Alleged in Another Harris County Case
Is the non-profit- Children 4 Tomorrow -a player in this scheme in Harris County?
The misuse of parental alienation may be in the middle of another case in Harris County, Texas, and a non-profit purporting to help children may be proliferating this misuse there.
On October 22, 2021, Texas attorney Enrique Torres filed a motion on behalf of his client, Nathaniel Martinez.
Conservatorship and possession of and access to the children is a disputed issue among the parties to this suit, and unification therapy between the parties and the children would be in the best interest of the children. It is important to note that NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ’s possession and access of the children has been severely affected and limited based on a void order that ELIZABETH SPRUELL MARTINEZ continues tohide behind in order to continue a path of alienating the children from NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ
Movant seeks the appointment of NORMA JO BACKS as the unification therapist in this matter to attempt to stop the alienation that is being perpetrated by ELIZABETH SPRUELL MARTINEZ.
Torres did not respond to an email for comment.
It’s the sort of motion I have grown accustomed to seeing all over the country. The allegation of parental alienation almost always comes with the suggestion that the appointment of someone will fix the issue.
When Heidi Holmes was similarly accused of parental alienation in Connecticut, her ex-husband’s attorney also immediately called for the appointment of a guardian ad litem: Mary Brigham.
In Harris County- where this case also occurred- the accusation of parental alienation against Rosie Alanis quickly also brought on the appointment of a reunification therapist- in that case Dr. Jean Guez. Here is part of one session.
When I did Rosie’s story, I introduced the organization Children 4 Tomorrow.
Rosie was told by the guardian ad litem in her case, Derek Anderson, that Children 4 Tomorrow had provided a lot of training and resources in the Houston area family court system and that organization had hammered home how significant a problem parental alienation could be.
Children 4 Tomorrow has become so popular as a destination for reunification therapy in the area that they have created a template for lawyers to use to get Children 4 Tomorrow appointed.
It’s interesting and noteworthy that Children 4 Tomorrow asks to charge “a reasonable fee” since it is a 501 © 3 non-profit.
I’ve seen this before as well: both the Council for Children’s Rights and the Children’s Law Center of Central North Carolina- both are also 501 © 3’s from North Carolina- also charge fees for their court services.
In this case, the fee may not be the biggest problem. Rosie tells me that she has spoken with many people in the Houston area who have been thrust into reunification therapy with a variety of providers. It seems someone is pushing reunification therapy as the answer to problems in Houston.
I asked Dwilene Lindsey, the head of Children 4 Tomorrow, about this but she appeared to respond to another email, “sorry about that. Have a Wonderful and Blessed Day!”
When I asked for further clarification, I received no further response. I previously did an interview with Dwilene.
As with many other cases, the accusation of parental alienation followed another accusation of some sort of abuse.
In Rosie’s case, her ex-husband was charged with child sex crimes against their son. When those charges were dismissed, she was accused of parental alienation.
Something like that happened in this case.
In this story, there are two key incidents: one happened between Nathaniel and his daughters on May 14, 2021, and another occurred between him and his e-wife on December 4, 2021.
In the December incident, Nathaniel was charged with assault before those charges were dismissed. The dismissal did state that there was enough probable cause, but this did little to clear things up in family court.
Shortly after the charges were dismissed, Nathaniel’s attorney argued in family court that the charges were false- orchestrated by his ex-wife- to alienate him from his children. This was also filed by Torres.
On or about January of 2022, it was just discovered that there were two criminal charges pending against MOVANT, NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ. Such charges were filed by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office after additional false allegations of physical abuse were made by NON-MOVANT, ELIZABETH SPRUELL MARTINEZ. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has since dismissed and/or refused to prosecute said cases as there was no basis in law or fact to charge MOVANT, NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ with a crime.
Since the filing of her EMERGENCY MOTION FOR TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OF POSSESSION, NON-MOVANT, ELIZABETH SPRUELL MARTINEZ has also made false allegations against MOVANT, NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ to agencies such as CPS and Texas Children’s Hospital. This pattern and action is evidence that NON-MOVANT, ELIZABETH SPRUELL MARTINEZ either has a mental condition or that she is attempting to alienate the children from MOVANT, NATHANIEL ROGER MARTINEZ.
This is a remarkably similar set of events to Rosie’s case, and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office- run by Kim Ogg -is involved in both. In Rosie’s case, her ex-husband was accused of touching her son inappropriately. Initially, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office charged him before similarly dismissing the charges.
I reached out to their office by email, and Brian Rogers, the communications director, provided this terse response, “Since no criminal charges are pending, we will not have any further comment on this. Please refer to the publicly available file for any other questions.”
As I mentioned, this was not the only incident. In May 2021, Nathaniel had an incident involving two of his daughters.
The police report from Pearland Texas- where the incident occurred- is terse. One states, “also 13yr old wants to report the dad assaulted her as well…16yr old in the lobby wanting to report that her dad pushed her.”
In another police report, it states of the same day, “Dad took daughter’s cell phone away while in his custody.”
In a hearing, Nathaniel testified in greater detail about what happened. He said that his daughter refused to get out of the shower and after trying repeatedly to get her to come out, he did the following. The transcript is from June June 14, 2021.
Q. All right. And at the end of that countdown, is that when you went into the bathroom with the beach towel to get her out of the shower?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Sir, was there any type of physical confrontation between you and {his daughter} when you got her out of the shower?
A. No.
The questioning continued.
Q: Let's talk about the incident on Saturday. When you were in the room with {his daugher}, it was you and {his other daughter}, correct?
A. Yes.
…
Q. Isn't that -- and so, if {his other daughter} said that she tried to go into the room to stop you from playing the recording, would she be lying?
A. She entered the room at a certain point. Whether it's to stop me from playing the recording, I don't know what her frame of mind was.
Q. Okay.
A. But she did enter the room at some point.
Q. And if {another daughter} say that you grabbed her and you threw her against the wall to stop her from reaching {his daughter’s} hand, would she be lying about that?
A. Can you repeat the question?
Q. If {another daughter} said that she walked into the room, and she grabbed {his daughter’s} hand to pull her out of the room, and then you grabbed her and threw her against the wall, would she be lying about that?
A. If she said that I threw her against the wall and that I
MS. WICOFF: Answer yes or no.
A. Yes, she would be lying if she said that.
…
Q. Okay. So, on Friday, when she was in the shower, how were you able to walk her with the towel down the stairs?
A. Exactly as you just described. I walked her from the shower down to the stairs.
He continued that he put his daughter into a car in that towel and drove her to her grandmother’s house; she proceeded to bite him along the way, according to his testimony.
You remember where exactly in your drive were you when {his daughter} bit you?
A. We were on the 288 Express Tollway.
THE COURT: At?
MS. BILLINGS: I'm sorry, Judge.
THE COURT: Exactly where?
THE WITNESS: Going 60 miles an hour while she's tearing up papers and biting me. I can't --
MS. WICOFF: Do you recall?
THE WITNESS: I do not recall the exact interaction of exactly where, but that's where we were.
In that case, he had his daughter charged.
To top it off, during this same hearing, the minor’s cousel, Patricia Billings, made this curious accusation when she cross-examined Nathaniel.
{Billings} It was an ongoing conversation and concern by me that the child hated her mother; and for whatever reason, we could not get the child in therapy, correct?
A. Between September and January, yes, that was a conversation, ongoing conversation, yes.
I reached out to Ms. Billings by email, but she did not reply.
On the one hand, Nathaniel was saying his ex-wife was alienating him from his children, but one of these same children hated her mom. How exactly could she alienate him from a child who hates her?
This case follows a common playbook. Ms. Billings is one of at least two amicus attorneys- similar to guardian ad litem- who have been on the case. Julie Ketterman is another. Ms. Ketterman did not respond to an email for comment.
Lori Lombardi was appointed as a parent facilitator by agreement of both parties and a therapist was appointed on the recommendation of Ms. Lombardi, who did not respond to my voicemail for comment.
Altogether, it is a potpourri of people assigned to this case making lots of money while not resolving anything. The court docket shows a long and voluminous case.
They have an agreed judgment, according to the on-line system, but this is a temporary order. Currently, Elizabeth has physical custody while Nathaniel has standard non-custodial visitation time.
Nathaniel wants it to be a lot more. He is asking for sole custody and for Elizabeth to have supervised visits.
Ironically, for a few months after the May 2021 incident, Nathaniel was put on supervised visits. If his request is granted, the case will order both parents into supervised visits during different times in the case.
Meanwhile, there is a hearing date scheduled for 8-23-2022, but the case also just got assigned a new judge and moved to a new court. It’s not clear if that will still happen.
The case remains in limbo.
I also reached out to Matt Day and Sam Yates who have represented Elizabeth Martinez, but they did not respond. Nathaniel was previously represented by Patricia Wicoff; I sent her an email but also did not receive a response.
Post Script:
Check out the previous articles in this series: Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4. and Article 5.
Check out the new fundraiser to help investigate more non-profits which don’t receive enough scrutiny.