To whom it may concern:
My name is Debra Cordova.I am 28 years old and a mother of two daughters who are eight and five. I am going to tell you what has happened to my family.
I started going out with my daughters' father when I was 18 years old. Shortly afterwards I became pregnant. Our relationship changed when I was three months into my pregnancy when he pushed me out of his truck, which caused me to receive stitches on my elbow. The day before I went into labor he beat me. Things got worse because he started drinking, doing drugs, and beating me every chance he got. However, I decided to lie and make up stories about the bruises that I had received. I got pregnant again in 1995 and things got even worse. The drug and alcohol abuse got worse, and the beatings got worse. After I gave birth to my second daughter, I received the worst and last beating from him. He stabbed me in the head with a fork, broke a glass cookie jar over my head, chocked me, and kicked me. He did this in front of my two and a half year old and newborn daughters. After that night I left and never returned.
My oldest daughter could not get the beating out of her mind and eventually attended therapy for it.
I moved from New Mexico to Oklahoma and met my recent husband, who is in the military, and finally found happiness. I never got rid of Michael's threats of killing my daughters in front of me and killing me because I left. I tried to get restraining orders against him, but one could not be issued because he was out of state.
In 1998, Michael was accused and tried for molesting his live in girlfriend's sister's son and his girlfriend's daughters.
Shortly after I noticed my daughters playing and questioned them to what they were doing. The words that came out of my youngest daughter's mouth are words that I will never forget. She told me that her father's girlfriend's oldest son stuck his wiener in her and it hurt so bad that she cried. I spoke to their doctor and she told me what I needed to do and if I didn't she would. I reported what my daughters had told me and put them in therapy. An investigation was done and child abuse was confirmed, but Oklahoma messed up by not interviewing the father and the case was overturned. I then stopped visitation between my daughters and their father. Another investigation was done and the case was not confirmed.
I went to court October 2, 2000 and was yelled at by the judge in New Mexico and found in contempt of court for not allowing visitation, even though the district attorney in Tucumcari had told me that if I allowed visitation I would be found guilty of failure to protect and my daughters would be taken away from me. The judge let me purge my contempt if I would follow his ruling and put me on probation for six months.
On one of the visits my youngest daughter came home with bruises on her. I took her to the emergency room at Norman Regional Hospital and did what I was told to do and reported it to the Tucumcari Police Department in New Mexico. I was notified that there was going to be a review of visitation in court on February 19th. A week before that date my oldest daughter was taken out of school in Oklahoma and questioned about things like if I ever kicked her, pulled her hair out, and drug her around by her hair. She told the caseworker that I never had. The same caseworker came to my home the following day and questioned my youngest daughter and myself. My daughter told her no. The case against me was not confirmed.
The trial that took place on February 19th made my life even worse. With the emergency room report in hand proving that I did not put the bruises on my daughter, I got blamed for doing it. Everything that my daughter's father's girlfriend said I did was what the caseworker that interviewed me said that the reporting party (Michael) had done. Michael had the girls the weekend before court on the 19th. During that time the judge had spoken with the girls. I do not know what was said, but the judge extended Michael's visitation for six weeks. The action made by the judge pulled my girls out of school in Oklahoma and put them into a home with two unmarried people, a home with their father and the two boys that had molested them. The judge does not believe what the therapist in Oklahoma said and feels as if Oklahoma dumped this case on his lap.
The judge picked an evaluator and I, the girls' father, and the girls met with her. My husband was in Bosnia at the time, serving our country, but I got reamed for him not being there. I was questioned if I was lying about being married, because he was not present at any of the court dates.
It is now June and my daughters are still in New Mexico with their father. I have tapes of my daughters crying to come home and begging me not to leave them with their father. I return to court in July. So much wrong has happened and no one seems to want to believe my daughters about being molested; except their therapist and myself, yet they are quick to believe that I would beat my daughters. No one seems to want to help or even acknowledge that I have written or e-mailed them.
I have done nothing but try to protect my daughters and follow the law. Their father has molested them, threatened them that if they don't say what he tells them to say that he will kill me. He is a child molester, plus he has two DUI's, but I seem to be the one who they push the blame on and they removed my daughters from me. My girls are still in danger.
The people that are supposed to protect our children are not protecting them, but are instead putting them in more danger. The people we elect into office could care less because I have written and e-mailed so many of you, and half of you couldn't even take the time to acknowledge that you received my letter, but yet you want my, my family, and my friend's votes. I am so tired of hearing the lies about how so many of you want to improve the family unit, but when a person like myself, a voter, comes to you for help, I get nothing but silence. I am sick of silence and time is running out.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO JUSTICE IN AMERICA?
Maybe, if I was a rich person someone would listen to me, but I'm not. I am so much in debt for trying to do what is right for my girls.
I'm writing this and sending it out to you, and for some this is not the first time, but I am sending this out to our senators, legislators, the press, and the television stations. I am hoping that someone will take the time to at least read what I have written and hopefully try to help my daughters and not just look the other way.
Thank you for your time,
Debra Cordova