Hello! I am Cheryl and this is my wonderful son Reggie. He is my baby of four. He is a senior this year and is college bound in a few short months! He is a honor student who is very driven and focused. He has very large goals for himself, and there is no doubt in my mind He will not achieve them. He is a very compassionate, resilient, and sweet young man. He has endured a lot in the last 3 1/2 years unnecessarily at the hands of his father.
I finally escaped a domestic abuse situation after nearly 40 years. We began dating in 8 th grade! Man was I smitten. Here is this cute little Italian guy with this large loud family that was so different than my quiet home. It was exciting and new. There was always something going on, always great food, a party, a lot of people, family , around having fun celebrating life.
In 1987 I got pregnant and had our first son, Johnathan my junior year of high school, his sophomore year of high school. With the support of my mother, I finished and graduated on time in 1988 with a baby on my hip! I continued to have employment and care for my son. I began to put the heat on to get married as I believed it was the right thing to do. His mother and my mother had a meeting and they agreed that he either needed to marry me or break it off. They were tired of my black eyes and bloody lips. He did not like the fact that he was given an ultimatum and to this very day, He holds that over my head. However, we were married in 1991.
We had a beautiful traditional Catholic Italian wedding, again nothing like my quiet family who were all mesmerized by these loud happy vivacious, Italians. We went on a honeymoon to the Bahamas, and I just knew that he had gotten us a little apartment and when I returned home, he was going to have it all set up and we were going to have our little family in our little home and it was going to just be the story I’ve always wanted.
We returned home and nothing of the sort transpired. He went to his parents house and I went to my parents house and I was heartbroken and dumbfounded. He’s always told me that I live in La La Land. I like it there. It’s a happy place. We alternated staying between our parents homes and finally got a small one bedroom apartment.
This is when the physical abuse really ramped up. Mainly because he felt that as the man of the house he could stay out all night and party and never be home for his wife and son. If I opened my mouth and had anything to say to him, I would get slapped, punched, a cordless phone jammed into the back of my head, all while our son watched. This is just a quick synopsis into how our daily life was.
The years passed, I held on. I was trying to make my story book come to life. I thought if I just loved him harder or if I was just a better person, then he wouldn’t be so angry all of the time at me or our children.
We had our one and only princess daughter in 1994, our second son in 2005 and our third son in 2007.
Yes yes, I have made reactive mistakes as well. We did work through a lot and while I learned and grew he stayed stagnant continuing with his “way of life “
The difference is in making human mistakes and bring snoring. HE was abusive to ALL five of us. We were hanging onto each other for support and safety.
if you ever get the chance to actually speak to my children and talk to them, they will give you their insight and how this is still affecting them to this day.
Yes, I tried to leave many times but his family became my family and always talked me out of it; citing “this is just how Italian families are and this is how Love is. The world is not butterflies, and rainbows and I need to get my head out out of my A$$” Even though 95% of his family were my best friends, including my mother-in-law, I was basically brainwashed. I was bullied.
As for my family, My mother passed when I was 27 from lung cancer on New Year’s Eve morning and my father followed along just under a year later on my 28th birthday. I have always had children that I had to worry about. I had no family of my own and no money as he was financially controlling and nowhere to go.
The Not soon enough to be Ex was a council member for our small town. We all had to put on our best faces and support. I will admittedly say he was a great benefit to the city. This fed his EGO!! During this time he had insight to the growth and development that was going to happen. He talked his parents into buying a building that he pkanned to remodel and rehab it; basicallycopy the his parents restaurant from another part of town, adding woodfired pizzas to our menu. We did very well! However, the hours were grueling. He was the front of the house, and I was the back of the house while also raising children in the kitchen. My poor children were exhausted all the time and lacked a normal childhood due to being shuffled to the restaurant as I was not allowed to be a stay at home mother. Again, “this is how Italian families are. “
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The restaurant really gave him the leverage that he needed to be as bad as he wanted to be. I was stuck. I had no money. I had four children at home at this time. Two of which were basically born in the kitchen.
Not only was he abusive, he was also a cheat. He never cheated up though. He always cheated with women who were on drugs and strung out. This last one is what really did me in. It was a six year long relationship. He even hired her to work in our family restaurant right underneath my nose. I later found out that she had hepatitis and AIDS. Needless to say I had not had any relations with him since before Covid and I immediately went to the doctor and I am in the clear, thank goodness. I cannot even begin to tell you the amount of drama and chaos that went on involving this woman in our lives. She even went so far as to try to groom my then 13-year-old son!! I had everything on our restaurant surveillance cameras as well as my son‘s testimony. Of course he did not want to believe it because he was madly in love with her. I also found out that he paid for her rehab, her rent, the repair of her totaled vehicle and he paid his lawyer to represent her and get her out of drug charges.
We closed our restaurant in the fall of 2022 as a medical marijuana dispensary offered a very nice retirement package so to speak. The catch 22 is this restaurant was intended to be our building. We paid for all of the upkeep, repairs, we collected the rent from the other tenants in the connected building, paid the property taxes, etc. The building “was ours “ His mother and father only put a down payment on it for us contingent we would pay it back, which we did and we would continue to pay his mother rent so that she could live comfortably for the rest of her life after her husband passed. Their father owned a car garage which was going to be divided between two of the other siblings and the childhood Home was going to be the last siblings. Sadly, in January 1922 Covid got my dear mother in law and she was taken very quickly. This shook our entire family to the core. She was the matriarch. She was the glue. As you can imagine, everything she owned went into probate court. We were already in a contract with the dispensary prior to her passing. We were going to be the Landlord’s for the dispensary as the building was going to be signed over to us finally but that didn’t get to happen as my mother-in-law passed away.
Even after her passing, we continued with the contract and we were going to be the beneficiaries of this rent and a buyout after two years. However, the abuse and the fighting and the cheating and the lying just became unbearable. I went downtown and filed after he threw a McDonald’s Coca-Cola on me in front of trick-or-treaters on October 31 of 2022 and he told me “I hate you. I’ve never thought I would ever hate anybody as much as I hate you. You are nothing but a crockpot to me.” ( I love my crock pot meals ) I said you know what I’ll see you in court and I left. I went to my daughter‘s house. That next business day I went to the courthouse and I filed for divorce, including a poverty affidavit as I had mentioned everything is in his name. I have no bank accounts no savings accounts no credit cards I have no way of getting any kind of cash. He liked it that way. He had me kept. I was a slave. He never paid me a wage during our 20 year restaurant venture and not to mention I have no Social Security credits for the last 20 years.
My filing sent him spiraling. I later found out most of this spiraling was because the aforementioned woman had dumped him. He disappeared for a month into the woods of California. He then checked himself into a mental facility for a month. He was trying to detoxify himself from the cocaine habit. He developed with his lover. Which explains why he dropped 93 pounds and a short time claiming that’s because all he was eating was salad and taking up boxing . He faked a complete movie scene overdose that would’ve won an Academy award, he stalked, he harassed, he put a tracker on my car, a recording device inside my car. He was relentless absolutely relentless. We were all terrified for our lives. He would rent different vehicles and follow us around. My boys would notice right away and begin taking videos and pictures of him in these cars watching us. Following us. On one occasion, he had a gun in the car. I took all of the license plate numbers, including videos and pictures to the police department and the detective said to me “I know his lawyer I called him and told him to get his client in check or I would slap him with medicine by stalking charges quote. Once again! He gets out of of all trouble, but he does not cease. Throughout this entire three years, he he’s gotten away with everything. It’s absolutely ridiculous!
This divorce case has been nothing but absolutely the most ridiculous drug out you can’t make this up type of case. Anything that could happen did happen. I have talked to other divorces. I have talked to other lawyers and they all concur that this is just a circus and they are making a mockery of our court system but the court system is allowing it. The Narc told my kids “if she wants a divorce I’m gonna show her what divorce is all about. “
The narcissist lawyer is a big time guy in our city and pulled a lot of strings to get a lot of leverage and a lot of favoritism. He has never been ordered to pay me spousal support even though he was the “breadwinner”. Mind you the first 14 or 15 years of our restaurant being opened was all cash sales. I know he has hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars hidden. This is how he has been living for three years without a job! He has spent all of the money that was in our accounts yet somehow he’s still able to pay his utility bill his water bill and his grocery bill car insurance car payment groceries, gas etc. He was never ordered to pay child support even though I have had custody 97% of this time. He refused to leave the marital residence, leaving me and my two sons out on the street. He had cameras and recording devices planted all around the house. He wouldn’t sleep. We could not stay there. We were terrified so we stayed with my daughter.
Every dirty trick that could be pulled in the courtroom was pulled. Absolute corruption! His lawyer managed to get residential custody for him with a week on and a week off with me. During one of the weeks he had Reggie (as my other son had aged out by this time) he took him to the home in Ohio where a father lined up and executed his three young boys. He explained in detail to Reggie, what happened and how it happened. This absolutely terrified Reggie. His girlfriend was also in the car with them as they were going to eat. Reggie told his counselor at school who was mortified and contacted CPS right away. CPS sought and was given custody of Reggie right away. However, because I had no money and I was staying with my daughter. I didn’t have a stable enough life to have custody so he was placed with my niece. I was given full access to him. I would drive 40 minutes to pick him up and take him to school every day and I would drive 40 minutes to get him from school and take him back to my nieces every single day. I took every parenting class they asked me to, submitted my fingerprints drug testing and background check. I was put through mental evaluations to be diagnosed with battered women’s syndrome. Imagine that! And CPTSD. They deemed me the safe parent. He refused to submit to any of court orderd testing. His custody lasted four weeks maybe.
As I mentioned while Reggie was staying with my niece, she was in a different city. Reggie was going to go to school with her children. The narcissist went to court and fought that Reggie needed to continue his catholic high school education and there was no reason for him to Go to any other school even though that meant Someone had to take him to and from school far away froM his placement. The court granted that but then could not order or answer who was going to pay for the tuition?? The magistrates ( plural because two magistrates) could not order him to pay tuition as he always had as was customary during the marriage that he was ordered to pay with the first judges, scheduling order N. ) Nor how he was going to get two in from school?? I asked, and they all agreed that I could take Reggie to and from school. Willie was not granted any visitation other than one hour once a week supervised at the child protective services facility and only if Reggie obliged. There was never any visitation. And needless to say, Willie never paid the tuition for two years even though he was ordered in 2023 to pay everything that was customary during the marriage, including tuition for our children. The school was gracious enough to find grants to write it off as like I said Reggie is a wonderful student. The narcissist even lied and said that Reggie’s school uniforms were not at the house so JFS/CPS gave us vouchers so that he could buy new school uniforms and shoes.
Meanwhile, the narcissist is traveling the United States - even going to Italy- eating plenty, paying all of his bills without a care in the world. I am on government assistance and we have Medicaid. I secured a job working for a home retailer making basically minimum wage. I never went to college. I never furthered my education the way HE did as I was the stay at home mom who turned into the kitchen slave at the restaurant.
After five months, Reggie was returned to me as I was granted, full sole custody. However, there still was no support ordered as he claimed he couldn’t work and he had no income.
I’m sorry if I’m jumping around a bit on my timeline, but 40 years is a lot to unpack and I have left out 90%.
With my full-time job and the help of my family members, I was able to secure a little small house that I rented for me and both of my boys. I forgot to mention that the abuser physically attacked my other son several times who then came to live with me.
My little cottage was so cute! My girlfriend’s helped me furnish it by donate items that they no longer needed , JFS/CPS gave us vouchers for mattresses and furniture for Reggie, I garbage picked, I thrift shopped, I went to every curb alert notice and i furnished my little house with Love. It was safe.
My court was to be finalized in May 2025 but once again because of the foul play, favoritism and the absolutely ridiculous games that his lawyer plays with all of the continuances it was not finalized. My family members could not keep loaning me money and so I was no longer able to continue to pay rent, and I was forced to move.
I did the reverse of everything I had just accomplished. I gave away most of the furnishings I just gathered a year prior and sold some as well. Reggie and I packed up , rented a van and drove to my oldest sons. My other son did not want to relocate out of town - he returned to his father.
September of 2025 we had a three day trial. Three grueling days!! This was our fifth or sixth judge throughout these years and she listened very attentively and she asked many questions. She made her ruling in November 2025 and yep, as you guessed it! He filed an appeal on the very last day that he could which was the 30th day from the appeal. This means everything she ordered including supports child support spousal support paying me half of our assets was now all halted - yet once again. Pure corruption.
Now I have to return to a different state in February to attend court as the court, found me in contempt for leaving the state, even though I had no choice because he did not follow through with a magistrates order from 2023 of paying everything that was customary during the marriage, including a credit card, in lieu of spousal support. I was able to pay my gas and electric and water bill on that credit card each month. And it was deducted out of our checking account that I do not have access to. He quit paying on that so I was no longer to keep up with my bills.
and now that he has filed this appeal, he wants to go to mediation, which means he wants to offer me another lowball amount. I did not even get into the amounts that our properties and businesses were valued at. He clearly paid his Appraiser to lowball our properties because there are several hundreds of thousands of dollars between his Appraiser and my Appraiser. Because of this, the judge ordered one of our businesses to be sold. That is another reason why he appealed her decision.
In the meantime, my son is going to be graduating high school very soon, applications have been sent, Fees have been paid, cap and gown has been purchased, and there is going to be a slew of other expenses that I cannot cover.
I think it is very unfair and I think it is absolutely wild that the state of Ohio has not ordered him from day one to pay supports. Let me back up a second, in this judges order. She only went back to September 2025 on the child support?? I have had him this entire three years and two months minus 5 months. Paying for everything on my own - borrowing money from people - dog walking- housesitting - pet sitting - donating plasma - selling my clothes and my jewelry all To make sure my child has what he needs. All while HE just went to Italy again probably to hide more money.
I don’t know when I’m going to see the end of this if I ever will. I cannot keep staying with family as it is a burden on their families. At this point, I look at HIM as a thief. He has stolen my life. He has stolen our lives. Our Peace. Our security. I don’t know how he sleeps at night and a big 2000+4 bedroom house all alone and not give one care in the world About what he’s done. He would rather see me on the street than to give me one penny. After 40 years of devotion.
if you have any questions or need any answers to anything, I’ve said, I am more than willing to answer them. Like I said, there is so so much more and maybe one day I can write a book or even have a TV movie maybe even a series because there’s been so much.
I really wish that I could find a reporter that could bring this corruption and the Hamilton County courthouse to light. Oh, I failed to mention that the judge that his lawyer is in cahoots with appointed this lawyer to be a new magistrate and the domestic relations court. You can’t tell me that there’s not favoritism that goes on there. I feel so sorry for the women that ever have to stand before him. I have written a grievance and the response that I got was “while the case is ongoing, there was nothing we can do “. How else do you get a lawyer found in contempt and conflict of interest once the case is over?? His lawyer is a longtime family friend and has represented us as homeowners, business owners, parents and individuals. He has also representing each of our children for various things. Yet somehow now he has not been found to be a conflict of interest??
My point, I guess in sharing all of this is … I worked the majority of my life to end up with nothing all because HE chose to yet again financially abuse and control us. HE blew through several hundred thousands of dollars In under 2 years just to make sure I did not have a chance. I have said time and time again, all I want is what the law says if legally mine, my parents belongings including items my father brought back from Japan to his mother, both of my deceased brothers ashes and their few belongings , and my children want their childhood memory totes and their belongings. Most of these have been destroyed ( I have video).
Anyway, I hope you have a great day. Anything you can donate will help greatly with a multitude of items to set Reggie up for a great future!!
And remember, the world IS full of butterflies and rainbows.
XO
Cheryl