Focus on Fatherhood!            Volume 2                    Issue 1, September 1998

"1984," "Brave New World," "Brazil." Fictional nightmare visions of a future where a despotic philosophy weds an omnipresent bureaucracy, resulting in a world where individualism, freedom, and humanity itself are permanently crushed under the boot heel of the totalitarian state.

This is a story of one such nightmare vision. A hysteria-driven witchhunt laced with government bureaucracies that destroys families and steals children to line the pockets of public and private parasites. But this story, unfortunately, is not fiction.

In a series beginning with this issue, we reveal how the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS), and their support systems in the public and private sector, manufacture victims of domestic violence to justify their budgets and salaries, and engages in the trafficking of children it quasi-legally steals from their own loving homes.

US Congressman Bill Delahunt, self-styled "pioneer in the battle against domestic violence," held a "Valentine's Day Forum on Domestic Violence," at the Barnstable Town Hall in Hyannis on February 14. According to a press release,

What Delahunt didn't know was that two organizations, at the time unknown to each other, were preparing to crash Delahunt's DV love-fest, and confront him with uncomfortable questions about the state's domestic violence laws and policies.

When the Q&A time arrived, members of the Fatherhood Coalition stepped up to the mike and one after another conveyed their own up-close-and-personal brushes with Massachusetts abuse prevention laws and the court system that enforces them. Growing embarrassed and impatient with questions and comments that he was both unprepared and unable to answer, Delahunt moved to abort the Q&A. But then, upon noticing the next person in line for the mike was female, he decided to take one last question.

By the time Nev Moore finished her question, Delahunt needed a crane to lift his jaw off the floor.

Nev Moore gave devastating testimony of how the DSS attempted to blackmail her into saying she was a battered women, under the threat of taking her daughter - a threat which they in fact carried out. Then she waved a stack of affidavits from other women who had been similarly threatened with extortion by DSS.

Nev Moore is the founder of Parents Support Group, the organization she formed to gather together under one tent families that have been terrorized by a government agency that trades in children stolen from families under the banner of protecting women and children from domestic violence.

Nev has been married for three years to husband Thomas. Together they live in historic Barnstable Village. Nev takes care of a horse farm and Tommy is an arborist. Together they renovated a two-acre Victorian garden in Barnstable Village, to the admiration of many of the well-heeled neighbors in their community.

Their household includes a 17-year-old son from Nev's first marriage and an eight-year-old daughter from her second. In April 1996, Tommy and Nev had a serious domestic incident - the first and only one - that resulted in Nev running out of the house. At the time, Tommy had been drinking. A passer-by called the police. Tommy was arrested on a charge of assault and battery, arraigned the next day, and returned home. He pled guilty to the charge, and was put on probation for one year.

The next day, an investigator from DSS showed up at the Moore home. It is policy for the police to contact DSS for any domestic incident where there's minor children. Nev says that she and her husband acknowledged the incident had occurred, and assured the investigator that there was no need for any concern. It was an isolated incident, one of those things that can happen in any family when alcohol is involved. Nev repeated to the investigator that she was not in fear of Tommy.

DSS recommended several programs for them. Even though Nev had no inkling of the nightmare that lay ahead of her, she knew enough to know better than to antagonize DSS. They went to a parenting class, and Tommy got counseling for his drinking and entered AA. DSS also recommended a batterers program for Tommy, which he initially resisted due to cost and time constraints of trying to fulfill service plan tasks while working a 10-12-hour day of physically demanding labor. [He did, however, accede to the demand after their daughter was taken the following year.]

For the next year, DSS sent an investigator to check up on them every month or so. By May of 1997, no social worker had showed up for three months. Nev assumed that DSS's interest in them had expired, so it was with surprise that they greeted the social worker who showed up unannounced in May. The DDS worker had a cryptic message for Nev: she had to pack a bag and come with her daughter immediately to a safe house for battered women. Furthermore, she was to tell no one where she was.

Nev was shocked. Surely there had been some kind of mistake. A clerical error perhaps - similar to what happens in "Brazil," where a dead fly falls into a teletype machine, "Buttle" becomes "Tuttle," and a world of coincidental mishaps leading to tragedy follows. Nev explained to the worker that she was solely responsible for the care of ten horses. No one could cover for her. Not only did she fail to understand the purpose of DSS's demand, but she could not neglect her duty at the horse farm; the horses were completely dependent upon her. Moreover, it was May, the beginning of the gardening season. Nev and Tom not only have the display garden, but grew their own vegetables and herbs, and do extensive canning, making their own pickles, jellies, and chutneys. Nev bakes flower cookies to sell - and each year exhibits at the Barnstable County Fair with her daughter. Such is the lifestyle that DSS has labeled "ongoing domestic violence."

As Nev bravely attempted to explain to the DSS worker that there was no problem, her children arrived from school. After seeing what was happening, the son unabashedly told the worker "You people are ludicrous." Finally tiring of this invasion of her home and privacy, Nev eventually had to order the social worker to leave, inviting her to "go someplace where you're needed."

Nev's daughter has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) since she was two. She is insecure and clingy by nature. Because of the events of the past year, she was understandably afraid that she would be taken by DSS. The DSS visit terrified her, and the following day she refused to go to school. Nev let her stay home until some semblance of security returned to the household. The next day, she again refused to go. Nev and Tommy sat her down between them and assured her there was no way she and Tommy would ever let DSS take her away. They quieted her fears and assuaged her concerns. The following day, she returned to school, and DSS snatched her.

Listening for the school bus to drop off her daughter, Nev's heart skipped a beat when she heard the bus go by without stopping. A little later, a policeman came to tell them that both children was at Barnstable Juvenile Court. Even then, it didn't occur to Nev that DSS had stepped in to "save" her children from their "violent home environment;" she assumed there had been some kind of incident involving the children. When she arrived at the courthouse, which is right across the street from their home, a clerk magistrate handed her a piece of paper informing her that her children were in the custody off DSS.

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  Barnstable Mother Exposes DSS Abuses Massachusetts News
By Eric Darbe December 1--After her two children were removed from her home by the Department of Social Services following an incident of domestic violence involving her husband, Tom, in 1997, Nevajac Moore started "Justice for Families," a support group for parents who believe that they have been mistreated by the DSS. She has been successful. The February 9, 1999 edition of The Boston Globe ran an article about her and her husband stating that the Moores "did more than get angry at the DSS. They got organized." Moore was quoted describing herself as a "child-protection pit bull." The Globe went on to tell of the accomplishments of Moore’s ongoing grassroots campaign to this point, and the aid that she provides families who feel "overwhelmed or ill-informed." But Moore told Massachusetts News that she was not completely pleased with the article. For instance, it mentioned at several points that she and her husband smoke, describing Moore as having "her head wreathed in smoke," and her husband as "pacing and puffing."

Moore, who notes that she had quit smoking before the DSS got involved with her life, says, "I feel that [the Globe] did try to portray a negative image of us.... Why didn’t [the article] mention how creative we are, the condition and atmosphere of our home, and the two-acre garden that we restored?" According to Moore, this does a disservice to the Globe’s readers. It makes cases like hers seem unimportant for wealthier, more "typical" families. But it is not, she says, and imparts this anecdote to explain: "One couple in our group took a chessboard to their supervised visit at the DSS office with their daughters ages 10 and 12. They were reprimanded and it was written into their ‘service plan’ that, in the future, they were to bring more ‘age appropriate games.’" Moore says that should give pause to those parents who think that they are doing a good job raising their kids and challenging their intellects at an early age, with games like chess. She continues, "The general public, placated by fast food, shiny cars, and mass-produced designer clothes, don’t think it can happen to them," as if this type of thing only happens to smokers and alcoholics who fail drug tests. Not Personal Moore stresses that her fight is not as much about her own personal story. "Our story is just an illustration of a huge problem," Moore says.

She believes the real story has to do with "massive corruption, misappropriation of funds, and covering up of abuse" by the DSS. Moore, who attended the Congressional School in Washington, DC, and the Rosenberg school in Switzerland, says that her background instilled in her "very high values about honesty, integrity, freedom and the foundations of this country." She continues that she always assumed "whoever were running the government were doing their jobs properly, that they were still upholding and following those standards laid down so long ago." She thinks that most Americans assume they do not have to take matters into their own hands, because the people in positions of power are operating within those boundaries. But, she says, in the case of the DSS the time has come for parents to take matters into their own hands. Unlikely Crusader On the surface, Moore may seem an unlikely crusader against government abuse. She has deep roots in the government of this nation.

Her family dates back to Virginia in 1648. She is a direct descendant of Joshua Frye, George Washington’s commanding officer. Upon his mortal wounding at the battle of Will’s Creek, Frye handed his command to Washington and the rest is indeed history. Her father, Jack Frye, was an aviation pioneer, and co-founded TWA with Howard Hughes. Frye, who was a close friend and advisor to President Harry S. Truman, was asked by the administration to consider a run for the White House, according to Moore. He declined a run for office and was appointed the head of General Aniline and Film, a German company taken over by the allies following World War II. When she is not helping parents in their battles with the DSS, Moore enjoys working in her garden. She also bakes and cans her own vegetables. She and her husband are both very "home-oriented" people. She says that she always thought that this was a very healthy lifestyle; one that teaches her children many things like how to be self-sufficient, disciplined, as well as about conservation and responsibility. She recently received an award from the Barnstable Civic Association for her outstanding contribution towards "making Barnstable Village such a wonderful place to live." As she reads the inscription on the award, Moore laughs at the irony that she would get an award for making her community a wonderful place to live when the DSS says that her home was too traumatic an environment for a child. Justice for Families can be reached at (508) 362-6921. Their address is P.O. Box 141, Barnstable, MA 02630.

 

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