I was able to obtain legal assistance and have decided to update my GoFundMe to a more concise version. Thank you for all the support:

Hello, my name is Katie, and I am the proud Mommy of two perfect little boys (ages 4 and 7). I am, and have always been their primary caregiver. At present however -- as the result of the vengeful machinations of my abusive husband -- for the first time in our lives my children and I are not together. I have not seen them in person since February 7th 2023.

My concern for our children’s well-being mounts daily as my husband consistently fails to comply with Court orders that obliges him to allow my children and I to speak daily (via video chat). This is to say, as I write this, I have little to no way to verify the well-being of our children. After this multi-year legal battle, and close to $200,000 spent in legal fees, I am in urgent need of external financial support in my campaign to regain custody of my children and support them. My husband refused to financially support me and our children for the 18 months after I filed for divorce, even refusing to pay for their health insurance. He has overdrawn on our accounts and stopped paying his bills that are linked to my name, all of which I have had to cover myself.

My decision to leave my husband while we had been living a bi-national life between Mexico and the United States was not one I made lightly. It was made with the help of over two years of therapy; after enduring over a decade of sexual and intense psychological/emotional abuse and manipulation from my husband. After years of enduring this abuse and the further hazards of his substance abuse-- both of which he refused to get help for and which put his life, our children's lives and his employment at risk on numerous occasions-- my husband’s unhinged behavior began to escalate dramatically in 2020. It was during that year that he started to illegally grow and sell marijuana out of our home, and he became increasingly paranoid, impulsive and full of rage. The domestic violence, consequently, started to become increasingly physical in 2021, culminating in an assault towards me and a subsequent death threat.

From September 2022 to February 2023 I was involved in a Hague trial brought against me by my husband for retaining our children in the United States (where I believed we had never abandoned our residency). My decision to retain our children in the United States was made to protect them and I from the dangerous and intolerable environment created by my husband; a man who as part of the same Hague trial, a California (CA) Court found to be: a manipulative fraud and perjurer; potentially clinically psychologically unstable and/or substance-addicted; a “general(ly) neglect(ful) and poor parent;” and “a very serious” and “significant if not grave risk” to our children. (Hague Defense Ruling; February 7th, 2023).

Throughout the case, my husband lied and manipulated Courts in Mexico and the United States. So much so that the court did not accept any testimony as credible. In contrast, the Court found that I did not exaggerate the facts and my testimony was found to be credible. Ironically, and unfortunately for our children and me, my husband’s lack of credibility seemed to work in his favor, as it frustrated the US Court into disregarding important details in both of our testimony and forcing the court into a technical ruling. In the end, the US Court disregarded our bi-national living situation and based on the fact that we own property in Mexico and our jobs were cultivated in Mexico, ruled that Mexico was our habitual home and that therefore our custody hearing should be held in Mexican Courts.

Since leaving my husband and filing for divorce on September 23rd 2021, in the interest of our children’s emotional, psychological, and physical well-being, I have made every effort to amicably separate from him; including numerous attempts to find resolutions that would provide for a constructive joint-custodial agreement with him. His denial of these attempts and more generally, his behavior over the last years however, will attest to the fact that he has no interest in amicable settlement and seems to have a vendetta against me for leaving him. After being served our divorce petition on November 1st 2021, which included Automatic Temporary Restraining Orders (ATROs) that prevent either parent from removing the children from the state of California during proceedings, my husband calculatedly used a Thanksgiving visit as a pretext to abduct our children. After agreeing to allow our children to have Thanksgiving with my husband and his family in San Diego, my husband not only broke his promise to return our children to me, he also broke the terms of our ATROS; driving our children across the Mexican border and flying them to Cabo San Lucas. After getting the boys back to CA two weeks later, my husband filed a fraudulent police report against me in Mexico and with this report, he went on to lie to a Court in Mexico that I was an addict, abusive mother/wife and that he did not know my whereabouts. This was apparently a strategy, as in Mexico it is highly unusual for the father to get full custody of children without substantial proof why the mother is unfit, especially when they are under 7 years old. The Mexican Court did not even attempt to contact me, I was never served and there was no investigation. That court suspiciously gave him emergency custody orders, which he brought up to CA in another attempt to steal our boys from me. After learning that my husband had been lying to the Court in Mexico, those orders were rescinded and the warrant for my arrest was dropped. In light of his continued lawlessness and abduction attempts the Orange County (CA) Court gave me emergency custody of our boys and ordered my husband’s visitation with the children to be professionally monitored.

Since our children have returned to Mexico my husband has continually broken undertakings made by the US Court to provide for the safety and wellbeing of our children in the lead-up to our custody trial. Specifically, my husband has alienated me from my children by not complying with US Court orders stipulating that my children and I be able to speak daily via video call. It would appear, for my husband, that the goal of our divorce is not about settling irreconcilable differences in the best interest of our children, and that now his desire for revenge against me is evolving into using our children as pawns to that end. At present, I feel wedged between the two overwhelming courses of action advised by my counsel: appeal our Hague rulings and stay in California -- where, on the one hand, I have an established residence, family, and a community, but could also potentially be without our boys for a year or more -- and/or, wage our custody battle in Mexico; where I have nowhere to live, no car, no family and no protection from my violent husband; and after the enormous expense of our Hague trial, scant financial resources.

It is from this predicament that I write to you now, in supplication of your donations, and supportive ideas to help. Thank you.