Picture-Perfect Mom Goes to Trial

Picture-Perfect Mom Goes to Trial

Thursday, March 13, 2008

filed under: family

You'll never believe why this Mom is being accused of child abuse.

Yesterday in Moms Are Talking About, we told you about the mother who was arrested for leaving her child alone in the car for less than a minute. We spoke exclusively with her husband, Tim Janecyk.

Mom•Logic: What happened?
Tim: On December 8th, 2007, my two older daughters, Sierra, 9, and Haley, 8, were at my office with one of their friends. They found a bunch of loose change and asked if they could collect it and take it to the Salvation Army bucket at the local Wal-Mart. My wife, Treffly, took them to donate the money. Not long after they left my office, I received a call from my wife, crying. She said, "I am at the Wal-Mart being arrested, and they are taking our child!"

ML: Why was your wife being arrested?
Tim: When my wife got to Wal-Mart, she quickly parked the car, ran about 30 feet (approximately two car lengths) to the Salvation Army bucket with the older girls, then was heading back to her car when the police stopped her. She was arrested for leaving our 2-year-old, Phoebe, in the car by herself, and the police said they were taking our baby into protective custody. The police left Treffly handcuffed in the back of their car for more than an hour. Meanwhile, my daughters were inside Wal-Mart crying. It was a confusing and chaotic situation created by the police.

ML: How has your wife been handling this?
Tim: It's been difficult. It's tearing my wife up. She's been labeled a child abuser by the state. Child Protective Services comes to our house whenever they want. They search our house and say they're "doing their job," but it's an incredible violation to have them do this when there is no neglect or abuse.

ML: When does your wife go to court?
Tim: My wife goes on trial today at 1:30 pm. She is facing up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. She will be facing a prosecutor and judge because they say she's a child abuser. Two weeks ago, we received a report from the Department of Child and Family Services saying the state has found found no abuse or neglect. I believe the judge will throw this case out within minutes. When this is over, my wife and I want the laws to be fixed so no other family has to go through something like this. It's been an absolute nightmare.

What do you think of this case? Comment below.

filed under: family

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The plain simple matter is this CPS and the government do not believe that your children are YOUR’s, in thier world the children belong to the state, “and only the state knows what is best.” I have personally been involved CPS’s distuction of two families. One child was taken away because CPS said the mother burped her baby too hard (the CPS worker was stand right there). There was no “Lets help you, you are young and a new mom, so lets teach you so you can be a great mom.” This is just one of the cases the other was even worse on CPS’s handling of a case. CPS does NOT care about your children, thier job is to see how many families they can destoy. As for the police in a lot of cases they add to the problem instead of helping.

- dee

Posted 03/14/08 11:59 PM

- Melodie

Posted 03/15/08 12:02 AM

- Melodie

Posted 03/15/08 12:03 AM

- dee

Posted 03/15/08 12:04 AM

All I can say is thank goodness you aren’t the ones working for CPS. You aren’t the ones who spend your days meeting children who have been sexually abused by their fathers. You don’t talk with children who have had scalding water thrown on them for telling mommy they were hungry. You don’t get punched in the face by a drunk father when you try to conduct a home visitation after a neighbor calls about 2 toddlers being left at home alone while their parents go drinking. No, instead, you are the ones who claim that all social workers and cops are out to destroy families. You are the ones who say CPS and the police need less authority when it comes to families. You are the ones who blame CPS and the police when a child dies from abuse.

- April

Posted 03/15/08 05:11 PM

I understand that sometimes an innocent family is accused. But CPS workiers do a very hard job and are overworked. Funding is always being cut.I don’t think it is fair to comdemn the the workiers. If anything I have seen cases where a child should be removed or at least the parents monitored and there is not enough time and money.Some parents just need education and the resources so they are not so overwhelmed. I would rather err on the side of caution. Having been raised in an abusive home back in the day when there was no CPS, my life might have turned out different if someone would have protected me and my siblings.

- Bev

Posted 03/16/08 05:29 PM

Frankly I think that this is positively DISGUSTING. The fact that Law Enforcement and Child Protective Services is so quick to jump on cases like this while you literally have parents (both moms and dads) BEATING their children to DEATH with CPS sitting on their hands. We just had a case out here on Long Island in New York where a mother stabbed her 3 children a number of times and then drowned them. The family members of the woman had been contacting CPS for an entire year as well as the police. The Police department has records of at least 12 occasions of the grandmother alone calling asking for the children to be taken away from the mother. Child Protective Services never took the children away or made any efforts to do so despite very obvious neglect and abuse. Further the day before the mother murdered her three small children CPS had decided not to visit the home at their assigned time. Extreme cases like this one out in New York happen all of the time due to the neglect of Law Enforcement and absolute incompetency on the part of Child Protective Services. The fact that they dare take away the children of a wonderful mother from a very loving family due to something as nonsensical and insignificant as this is disgusting and despicable. They are causing completely unnecessary pain and hardship in the lives of those poor children and their parents. This ordeal will traumatize those children and harm them more than their mother could have possibly done by leaving them in her car for a few minutes. Disgusting.

- Rebecca K

Posted 03/19/08 10:11 AM

NEWSFLASH! Today the police chief in Crestwood Illinois “resigned” without explanation. CHief Timothy SUlikowski is the man that was criticized by the world for his treatment of an innocent mother, Treffly Coyne and her children. The world called for justice in this case… this seems to be the first step.

- Patriot CW

Posted 06/20/08 03:22 PM

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