Mother regains custody in case linked to judge’s ouster

Sunday, Jan. 31, 1999 | 9:23 a.m.

Las Vegas attorney Marshal Willick filed a 17-page complaint against Family Court Judge Fran Fine in June 1997 with the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission after the judge refused to return custody of the children to his client, Barbara Lofink.

In the complaint, which also detailed Fine's behavior in five other custody cases, Willick asked the commission to remove Fine from office.

The discipline commission removed Fine from the bench in October after finding that she had committed several ethics violations in three other cases Willick had cited in his complaint.

Willick began criticizing Fine publicly for her actions in the Lofink case in May 1997, after she refused to grant his motion for a change of custody. The dispute involved two children Barbara and Todd Lofink had during their nine-year marriage. The Lofinks are now divorced.

Fine had awarded Lofink primary custody of the children in December 1996 amid allegations of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drug abuse.

Willick asked for the custody change after Lofink's May 1, 1997, arrest on a battery charge involving a dispute with the man's 16-year-old son from a prior marriage.

Fine refused to make any immediate changes, however, and scheduled a hearing on the matter for May 22, 1997.

During the hearing, Fine heard testimony from Child Protective Services officer Roseanne Wood, who said she interviewed Lofink's teen-age son six days after the man's arrest and noticed faded bruises on the boy's right cheek. Ms. Wood also said Lofink admitted hitting the boy.

After the incident, the boy and his twin sister went to live with their mother in Pahrump. A Nye County justice of the peace then granted the teens a temporary protective order against Lofink.

Ms. Wood told Fine at the May 1997 hearing that an investigation found no reason to remove the younger children, then ages 6 and 8, from their father's home. She also said Lofink had agreed to participate in counseling.

After the hearing, Fine refused to change the Lofinks' custody arrangement. Willick appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The high court dismissed the Lofink appeal in April, ruling that it lacked the authority to hear the appeal because Fine had not yet entered a final custody order.

"She refused to call it a permanent order, even though it had been in place for over a year," Willick said.

By that time, Fine had been notified about Willick's ethics complaint, and Family Court's presiding judge ordered Fine to recuse herself from all the attorney's cases. The Lofink case was reassigned to Judge Steven Jones.

Jones placed the Lofinks' two children with their mother in Wyoming during the fall semester. He then spent five days hearing evidence in the case this month before ruling that Ms. Lofink, the plaintiff, should have primary custody of the two boys, now ages 8 and 9.