Despite New Indictments of His Wife, Jeffrey Ruggiero Still Fights for Care of His Daughter
January 21st, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.Our old friend Kristin Ruggiero was back in the news yesterday here (Manchester Union Leader, 1/20/11).
Kristin is the woman who made multiple allegations of criminal behavior against her ex-husband, Jeffrey Ruggiero during an acrimonious divorce and custody case. Jeffrey was jailed because of them. He also lost his job as a chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Jeffrey steadfastly maintained his innocence saying that Kristin had made the whole thing up. Police in New Hampshire eventually figured out that he was telling the truth, freed him and charged her with 12 felony counts for lying to police and prosecutors.
At the time, Kristin pronounced herself eager to get to court and clear her name. Well, one out of two ain’t bad, I suppose. She got to court, but didn’t exactly clear her name. She was convicted of all charges and is currently doing 7-14 years in prison because of it.
At her sentencing, the judge called Kristin a “pathological liar.” Maybe he was a trifle nettled at her because telephone recordings had revealed her gleefully anticipating the judge’s death or disability due to a serious illness that required surgery.
Whatever the case, now prosecutors have leveled a hefty 21 more charges (17 of them felonies) at Kristin Ruggiero and others, including her mother, Elizabeth McDonald. Those allege she committed perjury and witness tampering during the first trial. If this gets to be a habit, she may be in court forever.
But there’s a back story to all this - child custody. Because of her original false allegations of abuse, Jeffrey Ruggiero had his parental rights terminated and his child placed first Kristin’s care, and later in that of her mother, the same Elizabeth McDonald who’s just been indicted.
Jeffrey and his wife have been fighting an uphill battle to reverse the termination of his parental rights. Now, you might think that would be easy given the fact that they were originally terminated based on fraud that has now been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court. Not so.
Being in the Coast Guard (yes, he got his job back) means Jeffrey isn’t present to assert his parental rights and try to reacquire custody of his daughter. So that job has fallen to his wife and is made more difficult by his absence.
It’s been almost three years since Kristin made her original false claims that got Jeffrey separated from his children. It’s been a year and a half since she was first criminally indicted and eight months since she was convicted. But Jeffrey and his wife still haven’t succeeded in getting his daughter back. They’ve had a rough go of it.
But now maybe the worm has turned.
So, given a choice between Jeffrey, the girl’s natural father, a man against whom there is literally nothing bad to be said, and Kristin and her mother, one of whom is a proven felon and the other is charged, hopefully the family court will finally return his daughter to Jeffrey’s care.
For all those who haven’t gotten the picture yet, let me be clear:
Jeffrey was originally charged with three misdemeanors and he was denied all contact with his daughter. When Kristin was indicted on 12 felony and one misdemeanor counts, she still had custody of the girl. When Kristin was convicted and sentenced on all counts, she still had contact with the child. Kristin is now indicted on 17 more felonies and four more misdemeanors and she still has contact with the girl. Elizabeth McDonald has now been indicted on three felony and one misdemeanor counts (remember that she’s not even the girl’s parent) and still has custody of Jeffrey’s daughter.
Jeffrey Ruggiero is a thoroughly decent man serving in our nation’s armed forces. He has done no wrong. On the contrary, he has had grave wrongs done to him.
We’ll see what happens. But honestly, if this case doesn’t show the hoops fathers have to jump through just to be parents to their children, then nothing does.
Kristin is the woman who made multiple allegations of criminal behavior against her ex-husband, Jeffrey Ruggiero during an acrimonious divorce and custody case. Jeffrey was jailed because of them. He also lost his job as a chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Jeffrey steadfastly maintained his innocence saying that Kristin had made the whole thing up. Police in New Hampshire eventually figured out that he was telling the truth, freed him and charged her with 12 felony counts for lying to police and prosecutors.
At the time, Kristin pronounced herself eager to get to court and clear her name. Well, one out of two ain’t bad, I suppose. She got to court, but didn’t exactly clear her name. She was convicted of all charges and is currently doing 7-14 years in prison because of it.
At her sentencing, the judge called Kristin a “pathological liar.” Maybe he was a trifle nettled at her because telephone recordings had revealed her gleefully anticipating the judge’s death or disability due to a serious illness that required surgery.
Whatever the case, now prosecutors have leveled a hefty 21 more charges (17 of them felonies) at Kristin Ruggiero and others, including her mother, Elizabeth McDonald. Those allege she committed perjury and witness tampering during the first trial. If this gets to be a habit, she may be in court forever.
But there’s a back story to all this - child custody. Because of her original false allegations of abuse, Jeffrey Ruggiero had his parental rights terminated and his child placed first Kristin’s care, and later in that of her mother, the same Elizabeth McDonald who’s just been indicted.
Jeffrey and his wife have been fighting an uphill battle to reverse the termination of his parental rights. Now, you might think that would be easy given the fact that they were originally terminated based on fraud that has now been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court. Not so.
Being in the Coast Guard (yes, he got his job back) means Jeffrey isn’t present to assert his parental rights and try to reacquire custody of his daughter. So that job has fallen to his wife and is made more difficult by his absence.
It’s been almost three years since Kristin made her original false claims that got Jeffrey separated from his children. It’s been a year and a half since she was first criminally indicted and eight months since she was convicted. But Jeffrey and his wife still haven’t succeeded in getting his daughter back. They’ve had a rough go of it.
But now maybe the worm has turned.
Ruggiero, 35, was indicted by a Rockingham County grand jury, as were her mother, Elizabeth McDonald of East Kingston, her boyfriend, Brendan Bisbee, also of East Kingston, and her ex-brother-in-law Daniel Ruggiero of Enfield, Conn.Why’s that important? Because McDonald has been the caregiver to Jeffrey’s daughter all this time. In other words, but for her, Jeffrey might well have custody of his little girl. Now she’s been indicted and possibly looking at a long stretch behind bars herself.
So, given a choice between Jeffrey, the girl’s natural father, a man against whom there is literally nothing bad to be said, and Kristin and her mother, one of whom is a proven felon and the other is charged, hopefully the family court will finally return his daughter to Jeffrey’s care.
For all those who haven’t gotten the picture yet, let me be clear:
Jeffrey was originally charged with three misdemeanors and he was denied all contact with his daughter. When Kristin was indicted on 12 felony and one misdemeanor counts, she still had custody of the girl. When Kristin was convicted and sentenced on all counts, she still had contact with the child. Kristin is now indicted on 17 more felonies and four more misdemeanors and she still has contact with the girl. Elizabeth McDonald has now been indicted on three felony and one misdemeanor counts (remember that she’s not even the girl’s parent) and still has custody of Jeffrey’s daughter.
Jeffrey Ruggiero is a thoroughly decent man serving in our nation’s armed forces. He has done no wrong. On the contrary, he has had grave wrongs done to him.
We’ll see what happens. But honestly, if this case doesn’t show the hoops fathers have to jump through just to be parents to their children, then nothing does.
I am glad that Justice is beginning to be served here. I would like to know what I need to do to get acts of perjury and lying by my ex-wife to be dealt with in my divorce and custody case. The court has never wanted to address my issues with my children being alienated from me. I am sure a lot of other people feel the same way and would like to know where to turn. For every one person listened to there are thousands of others that are not. This seems to be a one in a million case where someone finally listened to the true victim. I hope Jeffrey can pick up the pieces and reestablish his lost relationship with his daughter for as much as Jeffrey has been victimized; the biggest victim is his daughter. Good luck Jeffrey.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Rick Olson and I am a front page blogger on www.NHInsider.com I have been following this case closely and with interest as 21 years ago, I found myself under indictment for a false allegation leveled by a bitter ex. While I never went to trial and charges were dropped, I was separated for 12 years from my children...and only reunited with them on their insistence.
ReplyDeleteThe next battleground needs to be convincing law enforcement officials to stop acting as advocates and do their jobs. Their job is to get at the heart of the truth in these cases. This happens far more often than people understand and unlike Jeff, many people never get a second look.
PART 1 TO RICK'S COMMENT
ReplyDeleteRick, it’s very unfortunate what you have been through with your experiences with law enforcement and believe me I feel your pain. I was once a cop and while I was a cop was threatened with arrest when my ex wife made false allegations against me in regards to the visitation schedule.
My ex interfered with the visitation schedule and Keene Police automatically took her side. I explained the situation to the Keene Police who told me if I didn’t immediately return my kids to my ex (Which was during my scheduled visitation per the temporary divorce decree) they would do a warrant and arrest me. The Keene police didn’t want to listen to what I had to say. There was nothing that I could say to convince them my ex was lying. They just automatically took her side without even hearing what I had to say. In the officers report they stated that I was not a normal thinking person.
I confronted a supervisor from Keene Police with this statement in the police report and I was told that they couldn’t change what was said in the report and the officer’s supervisor should have never approved the report but if it was any consolation to me, the officer was no longer there because of these types of issues (I took it from what I was told that she was let go for incompetence).
Oh yea, this really made me feel good to know that one of the cops that helped my ex perpetrate her Parental Alienation scheme was no longer there. The damage was already done. Chalk up another point for a police department that helped condone parental alienation.
I was a police office, a detective, a sergeant and a prosecutor. I graduated from College with a Bachelors degree. I went to a vocational high school and graduated not only with a HS diploma but with a degree in electronics. Around that time I also obtained the rank of Eagle Scout. Do I sound like a person who is not able to think like a normal person?
PART 2 TO RICK'S COMMENTS
ReplyDeleteI can tell you what some of the issues are with law enforcement. It is the quality of people being hired. From my experiences, law enforcement hires and breeds aggressive people that are concrete thinkers. Many of these law enforcement officers have egos so large you couldn’t fit them in a barrel without a bottom. It’s just wrong.
You can train someone about the law and how to arrest someone but you can’t teach them how to think or how to process information. I learned early in my law enforcement career that there were always two sides to the coin. On the contrary to what one might believe, most cops do not become cops because they want to help people as they might tell you. It’s about power. Ever see a dog drooling when you dangle a dog biscuit in front of their face? I have seen cops act like that when it came to “Arresting the bad guy.”
What a lot of cops are incapable of understanding is that not everyone that makes a poor decision is a bad person. Let’s say a person who has never had any issues with the law, has lost their job because of the economy and is now struggling to make ends meet for their family by taking several low paying jobs. They lose their driver’s license because they couldn’t afford to pay a ticket and decide to drive anyway because they have to get to work and put food on the table and they get stopped by a cop and arrested for driving without a license. Are they really “Dirt bag” or “Scumbag” or any other of the many cop names that cops use in front of their piers? I don’t think so. But this is the way I here cops speak about people. I mean fellow humans. Do we see a double standard here?
You are very right when you say law enforcement needs to do their job and get to the truth of the matter. Unfortunately most cops are just not capable and I am saying this as both an insider and a victim. In my case with the visitation schedule, the Keene Police should have done their job and truly investigated the complaint. Unfortunately they too were like drooling dogs. Instead of them getting the idea they were going to get a dog biscuit they were looking at the whole meal which was me. Believe me, cops like to see other cops fail. It’s a power thing and that is how many cops get their recognition. They empower themselves at the expense of others.
Read the book “People of the Lie” by M. Scott Peck MD. You will understand why we are dealing with issues with law enforcement in general. Believe me. Many of cops that I knew were “People of the Lie.”
Thanks for all your hard work Rick on trying to right the wrong!