Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 | 12:33 p.m.
For five months Tamara Schmidt has been in prison, serving a sentence for neglect, without seeing or hearing from her 13-year-old daughter, Brittney Bergeron.
Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle said Wednesday that for now the two can have contact over the phone and through letters. He said a face-to-face visit will come when Brittney says she is ready to see her mother at the prison.
Hardcastle said although he wants the mother and daughter to move toward reuniting, he saw no benefit in "forcing" Brittney to visit her mother in prison.
Three years ago Schmidt and her husband left her two daughters, then 3 and 10, alone in a trailer in Mesquite and went to gamble. The girls were savagely attacked while the couple were out - the younger daughter was killed, the older one, Brittney, left paralyzed.
Schmidt was later sentenced to a 4- to 12-year sentence for abuse and neglect, but Hardcastle ruled that her parental rights remain intact.
Under the plan agreed upon among Schmidt, prosecutors and Brittney's attorney, the county will install a private phone line for Brittney at her foster home and give her a phone card. She will be required to talk to her mother for 30 minutes each week. All of the calls will be recorded and monitored by a Child Protective Services representative.
Both Schmidt and Brittney will be allowed to write letters to each other, but Child Protective Services must read those letters before they are delivered.
Schmidt's attorney, Steve Caruso, said the state's opposition to face-to-face visits was an example of "more delay tactics by the state because the longer they can delay the two from reuniting, the wider they can make the rift they created."
Caruso has argued repeatedly that Brittney has been essentially brainwashed by prosecutors, her attorney, Steve Hiltz, and her therapist to believe "her mother is absolutely no good."
On Wednesday Caruso reminded Hardcastle of how Brittney allegedly didn't want to see Schmidt at her home prior to being imprisoned.
"You (Hardcastle) suggested that Brittney at least drive by Tamara's house, and when it happened, Brittney agreed to go in and visit for five minutes," Caruso said. "She ended up staying there for five hours.
"There is no evidence she'll (Brittney) have a meltdown or it would be damaging to her at all."
Hiltz, the directing attorney for the Children's Attorney Project, rejected Caruso's claims that Brittney was being manipulated into saying she didn't want to visit her mother in prison.
"To my knowledge nobody has ever said a negative word to Brittney about her mother," Hiltz said. "The fact is Brittney wants to be adopted and maintain her relationship with her mother."
Hiltz said Brittney "lives daily in fear of being removed from her foster home and having her life disrupted."
"The last two weeks have been horrible for her as she has been terrified she would be forced to make prison visits," Hiltz said.
Hardcastle said he has presided over more child abuse and neglect cases than anyone in his packed courtroom on Wednesday and in his experiences he's seen even the worst cases resurrected.
"I've seen abuse and neglect cases much worse than this case where when the child turns 18 they run back to their parent because there was something in that relationship that no one else could see," Hardcastle said. "Brittney has never ever told me she finds no value in her mother and wants to terminate their relationship."
Matt Pordum can be reached at 474-7406 or at [email protected].
archive
