When Lies Destroy Lives

⚖️ Introduction: A Court That Punished the Truth

In June 2022, I lost custody of my sons - not because I failed them—but because I told the truth.

I followed every lawful step.

I protected my children from abuse.

I had an active Civil Protection Order.

I had documented reports of violence, substance abuse, and threats from my ex-husband.

I had police escorts.

I had therapists.

I had evidence.

But none of it mattered.

Because what happened in Summit County wasn’t justice. It was retaliation for speaking out. It was perjury weaponized. It was a judge—Susan K. Steinhauer—granting custody to a man with an open domestic violence case and stripping a protective mother of her rights while a court-ordered protection was still in effect.

🧾 The Setup: A Lie Told Loud Enough Becomes Law

❌ FALSE CLAIM: I Absconded with the Children

In June 2022, Judge Steinhauer issued an emergency custody reversal based on my ex-husband’s claim that I “absconded” with our sons. He stated I changed my number, refused to communicate, and disappeared to Florida.

🛑 TRUTH:

• I had a valid Civil Protection Order (CPO) filed on May 6, 2022—granted due to years of documented abuse.

• My children were with me under the authority of that order and under the direct guidance of legal counsel.

• I never violated any custody agreement. I informed schools, used escorts, and followed court protocol-as guided by my legal counsel every step of the way.

• Police reports show I requested protection to move my belongings with an officer present due to fear for my safety.

• My children had no passports and were never removed from the jurisdiction.

Judge Steinhauer was made aware of the CPO and still granted my abuser emergency custody, stating that “removing the children from school was not acceptable,” despite me following the protective order process.

🚨 The Evidence They Ignored

1. Domestic Violence Police Reports

• Feb 15, 2022: My ex was arrested and charged with Domestic Violence.

→ Police body cam confirmed injury.

→ A knife (box cutter) was recovered.

→ I was interviewed while crying in my office during a Zoom therapy session.

→ The officer documented broken glass, blood, and door damage.

→ The report clearly states: Carey Ann stated she is afraid of her husband.

• Prior Reports (2016–2022):

→ Multiple domestic calls.

→ A documented suicide threat by my ex in 2019 with a tri-county wide search for him made.

→ Welfare checks.

→ Surveillance complaints.

→ Drug use and mental health flags.

Yet Steinhauer later wrote: “There is no evidence of ongoing domestic violence.”

2. Therapist and Victim Advocate Support

• Therapist letters document that I was the full-time caregiver, deeply involved in my sons’ lives, and that both children disclosed fear of their father’s yelling, throwing objects, and violence.

• Victim Assistance Logs show:

→ I was advised not to return home.

→ I requested help regaining custody.

→ Prosecutors were aware of the abuse and my fears.

→ My ex was known to manipulate and stalk me digitally and physically.

3. My Sworn Affidavit (May 2022)

In a 15-page notarized affidavit submitted under penalty of perjury, I documented:

• Choking incidents and beatings witnessed by my children

• Drug use (including heroin, opiates, suboxone, marijuana, kratom, mushrooms)

• Suicide threats

• Emotional and sexual abuse

• Attempts to alienate me from family

• Surveillance, tracking, and digital control

• Financial coercion and deliberate unemployment

• Fear for my life and the lives of my children

The court dismissed all of it as “not credible” and instead believed the man charged with domestic violence 90 days prior who has been in and out of rehab facilities for drug abuse since high school.

🗣️ Lies That Changed Everything: Perjury in Plain Sight

Fathers Affidavit Contained:

❌ “I was the stay-at-home dad.”

🛑 Reality: He had not been in the home for months. My children were in my care full-time.

❌ “She refused to communicate and left with the kids.”

🛑 Reality: I had a protection order and followed lawful removal procedures under police escort.

❌ “She changed her phone number.”

🛑 Reality: False. This was proven with message logs and contact attempts.

❌ “She’s unstable, abusing the court, and fled to Florida.”

🛑 Reality: I went to Great Wolf Lodge for my son’s birthday—confirmed in photos, hotel logs, and police escort records. My location was known by my attorney at all times and guided by her.

Despite this, Judge Steinhauer ruled in his favor.

🧑‍⚖️ The Judge’s Ruling: Retaliation in a Robe

Susan K. Steinhauer ignored:

• My civil protection order

• The fact that the alleged “absconding” occurred while I had lawful custody

• Police reports confirming abuse

• My ex’s criminal record and probation status

• My sons’ testimony

• Mental health, addiction, and violence history

Instead, she wrote:

“Wife removed the children from school and from Husband without cause. This was inappropriate.”

“Husband appears more credible.”

“Wife’s motivations for requesting the TPO are unclear.”

“Husband shall be awarded temporary full custody. Wife shall have supervised visitation only.”

A mother with no criminal record.

A mother who followed the law.

A mother with therapist support, police validation, and a history of full-time care—erased.

🧨 What It Cost

My sons lost:

• Their mother’s daily care

• Stability, schooling, and safe emotional attachment

• Their life as they knew it including their entire social circle

I lost:

• Legal and physical custody

• My safety and everything I once owned along with my businesses and identity as mother - my whole world collapsed

• Years of my children’s lives

The system lost:

• Credibility

• Integrity

• The opportunity to protect two boys from generational trauma

📚 What the Records Prove

• The judge recused herself, then retaliated after I filed a grievance.

• My ex’s lawyers used perjury to gain custody, despite direct contradictions in police and court records.

• The neighbor’s testimony was inconsistent and based on hearsay-also a drug addict.

• The children’s well-being was never investigated—no guardian ad litem was assigned until after the damage was done.

• The judge ruled that a domestic violence protection order “was not a factor” in custody because it “did not appear to be imminent.”

🛑 This Was Not a Custody Ruling—It Was a Cover-Up

This was a punishment for telling the truth.

For filing a police report.

For saying no.

For protecting my sons.

For daring to speak out against a man with power and control.

The system did not fail me by accident. It failed me by design.

🔁 What Happens Now?

I am still fighting to restore my rights.

I am still fighting for my sons.

And I am still documenting every lie, every breach, every moment of state-sanctioned abuse.

Because this is bigger than one mother.

This is a blueprint for every parent who’s ever been erased.

✊🏼 Let This Be Known

Let it be known that in Summit County, Ohio:

• A mother with a valid protection order can lose custody to her abuser.

• Perjury is rewarded if you lie loud enough, often enough, and with the right attorneys.

• The truth can be buried—but only if we let it.

I won’t.

If you are a journalist, attorney, advocate, or lawmaker who sees the systemic danger in this story, contact me. Share this story. Break the silence.

Because if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

If you are an attorney that can help, this system has bankrupted me - please consider taking my case pro bono to get my sons justice.

📁 All exhibits, court filings, police reports, affidavits, and sworn evidence available upon request.

📍 Summit County, Ohio – Case # DR-2022-03-0667

🕊️ The Mother They Tried to Erase: How Evidence of Fitness Was Buried Under Perjury and Bias

When a system becomes afraid of the truth, it does not seek justice—it seeks to destroy the truth-teller.

After I exposed judicial misconduct, filed official grievances, and began publicly documenting the unconstitutional rulings in my custody case, I was hit with the full weight of retaliatory force: not only was a fabricated protection order filed against me by Judge Susan Steinhauer, but suddenly, I was painted as mentally unstable, dangerous, and unfit to parent—without a single shred of evidence.

But the record tells another story. A truth that cannot be erased. A truth documented by professionals with no agenda but the safety of my children.

🔹 Decades of Experience, One Unshakeable Verdict

Licensed therapist Stefanie Young, LPCC—a decorated Gulf War Army Veteran, former police officer, and independent counselor—has worked for over 30 years with survivors of domestic violence and child abuse. She’s collaborated with the Department of Defense, sat on intervention panels, worked inside the Akron courts, and treated hundreds of victims.

Her words?

“I have seen a lot. But I have never seen a case quite so mishandled as this. It is jaw-droppingly shocking.”

She didn’t say this casually. She said this after working with me and my sons—Isaiah and Zachary—before, during, and after we were forcibly separated by judicial order. She witnessed their trauma, their regression, and the preventable harm inflicted when they were removed from my custody and placed with their abusive father.

“These were thriving, healthy young children. It is almost unfathomable that they were placed back with a father who already had domestic violence charges and who allegedly attempted to murder their mother. This is one of those 48 Hours episodes where you watch and say, ‘No way.’”

🧠 Mental Health Weaponized—But the Facts Don’t Lie

When the system couldn’t discredit me with evidence, it turned to character assassination.

Steinhauer’s protection order accused me of drug use, emotional instability, and obsessive behavior. The Guardian ad Litem began circulating claims of paranoia. A psychologist with no direct evaluation cited a diagnosis of Paranoid Personality Disorder—based not on interviews or assessment, but on secondhand notes from those aligned with the opposing party.

But here’s the reality:

✅ Clinical Therapist Reports (Stefanie Young, LPCC):

• “CareyAnn is a loving, kind parent.”

• “There is no reason that she should not be accorded full custodial parental rights without restriction.”

• “I saw her regularly take her boys on outings, teach them, nurture them. They were happy and calm when in her care.”

• “There is no mental health condition present that would impair her ability to parent.”

✅ Psychiatric Assessment (Mark Garretson, MSN, PMHNP-BC – Nov 22, 2024):

• No signs of delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, mania, or suicidal ideation.

• “Above-average intelligence, cooperative, well-spoken.”

• “No mental health concern that would justify any restriction on custodial rights.”

• Substance use: None. Occasional moderate wine consumption. Never smoked, no drug use.

• Health: “Excellent physical and mental health.”

✅ Drug Test – August 2022:

• Nail sample tested NEGATIVE for:

• Amphetamines

• Opiates

• Cannabinoids

• Benzodiazepines

• Cocaine

• PCP

• Methadone

• Barbiturates

• Propoxyphene

Every accusation of drug use was false. Every whisper of “mental illness” was a projection.

🩸 The Real Diagnosis: Systemic Gaslighting

Instead of protecting me as a survivor of domestic violence…

Instead of listening to my children’s direct disclosures of abuse…

Instead of upholding court orders that were already in place to protect us…

The court used a fictional version of me to justify erasing me from my sons’ lives.

And when the smear campaign didn’t work?

When no psych eval could disqualify me?

When drug tests came back clean and expert opinions confirmed my fitness?

The judge filed a protection order herself—against me.

As if speaking out was violence.

As if filing a grievance was a threat.

As if being a loving mother was a crime.

🧨 A Court That Protects the Abuser

The psychological records also confirm what has been ignored by those in power:

• My children disclosed that their father hit, yelled, broke things, and scared them.

• One son said: “Dad throws things and breaks stuff, it scares me and Zack.”

• Another said: “I wish he wouldn’t yell so much. I don’t think daddy learned any manners when he was growing up.”

They begged the therapist to “get the fighting to stop.”

And instead of protecting them, the court sent them back.

⚖️ So, What Was the Real Problem?

Not my parenting.

Not my health.

Not my conduct.

The real problem? I spoke out.

I called out the judge who gave my abuser custody and then recused herself—only to become a partner at his attorney’s firm.

I published truth.

I filed grievances.

I stood my ground.

And for that, they tried to erase me. But they didn’t succeed.

Because truth doesn’t disappear—it resurfaces.

And every single piece of evidence I just laid out is part of a public record now. No matter how much power they abuse, they cannot silence facts.

“Why Didn’t They Protect My Sons? The Evidence They Ignored—and What It Cost”

🟥 The Cost of Perjury: When Judges Retaliate Against Truth

By Carey Ann George

🕊️ Mother. Advocate. Survivor.

⚖️ When the Law Protects Itself—Not the Truth

We are told the court is where truth wins. Where facts matter. Where evidence is sacred.

But that’s not what happened in my case.

When I exposed misconduct in my custody trial, I wasn’t met with accountability—I was met with retaliation.

When I filed grievances against a judge who broke the law, the system protected her, not my children.

And when I began to speak out publicly, they responded with the weapon of false narratives, psychological slander, and a malicious protection order to silence me.

But they didn’t succeed.

Because I kept the evidence.

🧨 Retaliation in Robes: The Judge’s Lies

In October 2024, I attended a community candidate night in Sagamore Hills. Weeks later, Judge Susan Steinhauer—who had been previously recused from my custody case—filed a fabricated protection order accusing me of stalking, aggression, and mental instability at that very event.

She claimed I followed her, glared at her, physically cornered her, and caused such a scene that law enforcement had to intervene.

But every piece of her story was false.

🔍 Here’s what really happened:

• Multiple witnesses (including event attendees, sheriffs, and public officials) confirmed: no incident occurred.

• Greenwood Community Center confirmed: no police report was ever filed.

• Texts and affidavits from people who were with me show I was never near her except to shake her hand and calmly tell her I’d make sure no one voted for her and she would never sit on another bench so that no family would ever be destroyed by her again.

• Even the prosecutor’s office confirmed that nothing notable occurred that night.

Yet this sitting judge used the weight of the court to file false allegations—in direct response to the grievance I submitted against her.

This is what judicial retaliation looks like.

🧠 Psychological Warfare: The Attempt to Erase Me

To justify keeping me from my children, they needed a new tactic:

Character assassination.

Suddenly, I was being labeled paranoid, mentally ill, drug addicted, dangerous—even though I’ve never had a criminal record, history of substance abuse, or any diagnosis that would impair parenting.

They tried to erase me on paper.

But the truth couldn’t be clearer:

✅ Therapist Reports (Stefanie Young, LPCC)

“CareyAnn is a loving, kind parent… There is no reason she should not have full custodial parental rights without restriction.”

“In my 32 years of work with DV cases and the courts, I have never seen a case this egregiously mishandled.”

“This reminds me of a 48 Hours episode—except it’s real. And the trauma it’s caused her children is immeasurable.”

✅ Psychiatric Evaluation (Mark Garretson, PMHNP-BC)

“No evidence of psychosis, delusion, paranoia, or mental instability.”

“Above-average intelligence, emotionally stable, excellent physical and mental health.”

“No reason to restrict her custodial rights.”

✅ Drug Testing (Nail Analysis, August 2022)

Negative across all panels: opiates, amphetamines, THC, PCP, methadone, benzos, and more.

✅ Therapist Testimony on GAL & Court Misconduct

• Reports of HIPAA violations, surveillance, and manipulation of evidence by opposing parties.

• Father harassed therapist too.

• A judge who gave my abuser custody later became law partners with his attorney.

🧒🏼 What About the Children?

Let’s not forget what this is really about.

My sons were interviewed in 2019 and disclosed abuse clearly and repeatedly:

“Dad throws things. Breaks stuff. It scares us.”

“He yells. I don’t like it. I want him to stop.”

“He told us ‘Mommy doesn’t love us.’”

“I heard him say, ‘I’m the alpha, I’ll kill you.’” (referring to me, their mother)

A professional therapist documented all of it.

What did the court do?

They sent them back.

Despite a valid civil protection order.

Despite domestic violence charges.

Despite mandatory reporters confirming risk.

The abuser was given custody.

The protective parent was erased.

🚨 Perjury, Protection Orders, and Power Abuse

This isn’t just a personal tragedy—it’s a civil rights crisis:

• Judges are abusing their bench to retaliate against those who file grievances.

• Protective parents are being labeled unstable for reporting abuse.

• Mental health weaponization is replacing facts and evidence.

• Judicial immunity is being used to conceal crimes.

• And worst of all, children are being placed in harm’s way—intentionally.

🗣️ We Are Not Powerless

I am still standing.

Still writing.

Still fighting.

Because what they tried to bury—evidence, truth, motherhood—they failed to kill.

Every record they ignored is now public.

Every lie they told is now exposed.

Every person they hurt will now be heard.

And I will keep going until the system answers for what it’s done.

🧷 Final Word

This is not just my story.

It’s the story of thousands of parents across the country who trusted the court to protect their children—and watched the court do the opposite.

It’s time for this to end.

No more perjury behind the bench.

No more retaliation against whistleblowers.

No more erasing safe parents to protect abusers.

No more.

🧒🏼 Why Didn’t They Protect My Sons?

The Evidence They Ignored—and What It Cost

They told me the system would protect my children.

That mandatory reporters mattered.

That therapists were heard.

That the voice of a mother who had never harmed her children would count for something.

But they lied.

Not in words—but in actions.

Because what happened in my case was not just negligence.

It was deliberate omission.

It was calculated erasure of truth to preserve power.

And my sons paid the price.

🗣️ Documented. Verified. Ignored.

This wasn’t gossip. This wasn’t parental disagreement. This wasn’t a bitter divorce.

This was documented child abuse and coercive control, corroborated by a licensed therapist with a military and law enforcement background.

The same therapist later wrote:

“I’ve worked in domestic violence for 32 years. I’ve never seen a case so mishandled… It’s as if someone in the court did a favor for the abuser and everyone looked the other way.”

This therapist had worked with:

• The Department of Defense

• The Battered Women’s Shelter

• The Akron DV Court

• The Probation Department

• Numerous judges

And her conclusion was clear:

“This is not a safe situation. These boys are being psychologically damaged. And the system did it to them.”

👁️‍🗨️ What the System Saw—and Still Denied

They saw:

✔️ A history of domestic violence

✔️ Verified fear from the children

✔️ Protective orders on record

✔️ A therapist begging the court to intervene

✔️ An ex-partner with a documented pattern of control, surveillance, and violence

✔️ No allegations—ever—against me

But instead of protecting them…

They gave the abuser full custody.

And forced me into supervised visitation.

Not because I was unstable.

Not because I posed a threat.

But because I refused to be silent about the abuse.

Because I spoke the truth.

🔒 They Protected Power, Not Children

When I finally pieced it all together, the betrayal cut deeper than I imagined:

• The judge who took my sons away later became law partners with my ex’s attorney.

• The GAL submitted statements about my mental health that were never diagnosed.

• A psychologist I had never met labeled me with Paranoid Personality Disorder—citing no abuse happened-while ignoring the actual surveillance and trauma I endured-after submitting her report and admitting to having never reviewed my evidence I submitted.

• Therapists were silenced.

• Evidence was sealed.

• Police reports were hidden or never taken.

And through it all, my sons waited for someone to listen.

💔 What It Cost

It cost them their mother.

It cost them emotional stability.

It cost them healthy attachment.

It cost them safety.

They were forced to live with the very person they begged me to protect them from.

And now, years later, they are isolated.

Without friends.

Kept in clothing too small.

Socially withdrawn.

And taught to fear the one person who protected them from the start: their mother.

That is what this court system did.

That is the cost of ignoring evidence.

That is the cost of protecting reputations over children.

⚖️ Who Will Be Held Accountable?

The judge who recused and retaliated?

The GAL who wrote prejudicial statements with no proof?

The attorneys who silenced whistleblowers?

The professionals who looked the other way?

Or will the truth finally mean something?

🌱 The Healing Has Just Begun

This chapter of the story is not just about what was taken.

It’s about what I’m reclaiming.

Truth.

Voice.

Motherhood.

And justice—for my sons, and for every child failed by this system.

I will not stop.

I will not be erased.

And they will not forget what love feels like.

Because I never left.

They just buried me under lies.

But I am rising.

And I will make sure the world knows why my sons were never protected—and how we can make sure it never happens to another child again.

For evidentiary folder, comment below. Please share this post to help my son get justice. They’re currently living in their father‘s basement with their grandmother.