Support Makoto's Legal Battle for Her Child

My name is Makoto. I am a single mother of two and I am being sued for custody of my daughter. I am seeking funds to pay for a lawyer to help navigate the legal system.

Ex-boyfriend/baby daddy wants to petition for full custody of our daughter after 2+ years of no contact

My ex and I broke up when I was five months pregnant. I gave updates throughout the pregnancy and coordinated visitation schedules once our daughter was born. He wasn’t at the hospital when the birth certificate was signed and the hospital put “unknown” for second parent.

When he came over to visit and bond with the baby he would sit on his phone the whole time and never even looked at her.

I told him that, since I was a recipient of SNAP and state medical benefits, the state would automatically send notification to child support services to open a case. I explained that his name wasn’t on the birth certificate and he could choose to claim her and be billed for child support or he could remain anonymous and I would only give minimal information to the interviewer when they called. I told him I wouldn’t lie to them, but I wouldn’t offer any more information than I was directly asked for. I also told him we needed to work out a visitation schedule that wouldn’t interfere with our other children’s lives since my son was confused by his presence after not seeing him for so many months.

He texted me a couple days later saying he was taking a step back and wouldn’t be coming to see our daughter anymore. She was ten days old.

Mid-2024 I was served with a lawsuit regarding a default on a car loan I didn’t sign for. My ex had asked me to co-sign for him in February 2022 and I agreed. I was in MD visiting family at the time and the dealership sent to contract to the address there. When I received it, I called the salesperson and told him I didn’t agree with the terms and wouldn’t be signing it. He told me he had already released the vehicle to my ex and I needed to sign it. I told him to pound sand and left it at that. The summons had a copy of the contract with a forgery of my signature on it. Luckily, I held on to the unsigned contract they sent me and submitted it as evidence that I never signed it. I am still in the middle of the lawsuit.

Recently, the CA child support office served my ex with a petition to establish parentage. His fiancée sent me vaguely threatening messages on Facebook and his mother messaged me to inform me that he was hiring a lawyer to sue me for full custody of our daughter. I am assuming they identified him through the aforementioned lawsuit. (I’m assuming) he thinks I reneged and gave them his information.

I got served with two lawsuits from him since. One for defamation because he thinks I accused him of forging my signature (I didn’t), and one to establish paternity and assume full custody.

I am humbly requesting financial assistance to hire a lawyer for the custody case. He abandoned our daughter and is now trying to take her away from me just to get back at me for breaking up with him. I do not know enough about the courts to do this by myself and I cannot afford a lawyer on my own.