Ripped Apart

Bartholomew's logic was also "weak," according to the judge. Fox said he wasn't buying the counselor's notion that Richard's attempt to submit his wife's self-assessment was such a heinous act that it called into question the engineer's character.

The counselor hadn't even proofread the report, the judge noted. (At trial, it had come out that Bartholomew's dictation software had sometimes changed pronouns, and Richard's attorney observed that some of the controlling behavior Richard had ascribed to his wife seemed to appear in the report as things "he" had allegedly done.)

Scott Bakal

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More About

• Doug Bartholomew
• Jan Dyer
• Michael Fox
• Domestic Violence
• Crime and Law

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"In my 22 years on the bench, I have never reviewed an expert report such as this," Fox declared.

Richard subsequently filed a complaint about Bartholomew with the Department of Health, the ninth lodged against the counselor. The DOH did not sustain eight of the complaints, but is currently investigating Richard's.

In an interview and follow-up e-mail, Bartholomew says that dads like Richard aren't the only ones being targeted, but that he too is a victim, calling his persecutors a "homegrown hate group of men . . . whose stated intention is to destroy the [domestic-violence] intervention system."

Turning to Richard's case, Bartholomew claims his report was misconstrued: "First of all, I said the guy didn't do any domestic violence." No matter that those words aren't in his report, that he referred to further psychological "abuse," and that the judge and the attorneys understood the exact opposite—the counselor points to his line saying that he couldn't determine whether Richard had assaulted his wife. Although at trial Bartholomew argued that assault is not a necessary component of domestic violence, he now says that it is.

Why then did he recommend that Richard undergo domestic-violence treatment? "A lot of people really benefit from that—especially people who haven't stepped over the line," Bartholomew says. "You learn about how to handle relationships."

"The attorneys on both sides were extremely difficult," he adds by way of explaining how his report was construed as a domestic-violence finding. "Each of them took it and ran with it."

At least Richard's wife's attorney—not Dyer, but a new lawyer—is still attempting to run with it, and has filed an appeal on behalf of her client. Some of the lawyer's arguments: The judge had improperly discounted an "expert" opinion that the father had engaged in domestic violence and "failed to complete" his recommended treatment.

The appeal is pending.

Meanwhile, the churn of family court goes on. One recent day, a dark-haired 31-year-old man, the father of a 17-month-old girl, presents himself before Commissioner Jacqueline Jeske. An unemployed construction manager, he says he has already maxed out on lawyer's bills. "The only thing I ask is to recognize the importance of a father in a girl's life," he tells the commissioner.

Like so many dads, his role has been cast in doubt by a domestic-violence allegation. (His wife claimed he bumped her with his chest and pinned her down on the bed during an argument.) At an earlier hearing, the commissioner had consigned him to supervised visits, but allowed his mother to act as the supervisor. This wasn't too practical, since the mom lived on an island near Tacoma and he lived in Seattle. So he left his job and moved to Tacoma.

Now he and his wife are back in court, each with complaints. He charges that his wife is not allowing him the full 24 hours with his daughter the court granted him once a week. The mom, who does have the benefit of counsel, insinuates that there must be something wrong with the visits since the toddler is taking a long time to "recover" afterward, as evidenced by too-long napping.

Jeske not only gives the dad's complaint no credence, she holds it against him. "It sounds suspiciously close to using the child as a control mechanism, which is a domestic- violence [behavior]," Jeske says.

In contrast, she takes the mom's complaint so seriously that she takes away one of the dad's monthly visits until a parenting evaluator can look into the prolonged-napping situation. Not only that, she orders the out-of-work and unrepresented dad to pay $1,000 for his wife's attorney.

The dad sighs and looks down.

"It doesn't always go the way you think it might," the commissioner remarks, drawing the hearing to a close. "I'm trying to craft equity." She doesn't explain how.

nshapiro@seattleweekly.com