Santa Ana Attorney Charged in Custody Case

A Santa Ana attorney is facing charges that he helped a client attempt to steal her two young children from her ex-husband in a small Minnesota farm town, authorities said.

Ronald Eugene Lais, 51, a family law attorney, is accused of aiding and abetting a burglary attempt and attempting to deprive a father of his parental rights, authorities said. He is charged with five felonies.

Lais waited in a car while his client, Lisa Eileen Van Essen of Moreno Valley, sneaked into her ex-husband’s farmhouse early Dec. 23 while he was out milking his cows, said Assistant County Atty. Tim Anderson in Pipestone County, Minn.

On Friday, Lais denied the charges, saying he and his client were simply trying to enforce a court order that gave the mother custody of the two children.

Lais and his client each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, Anderson said.

Van Essen’s former husband, Rodney, returned six months ago to his hometown in Edgerton, a small farming community of about 1,000 people in southwestern Minnesota. Rodney Van Essen is a dairy farmer with 300 cattle on a 300-acre farm.

He said he was eventually granted custody of his 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son after he and his wife separated in July and later were divorced. Rodney Van Essen said Friday he was shocked to see his ex-wife and her lawyer attempting to leave with the children that morning.

“The kids were traumatized,” Rodney Van Essen said. “They were in their pajamas and running barefoot in the snow. They did not know what was going on.”

Rodney Van Essen said he stopped his ex-wife from taking the children and called authorities, who later charged Lisa Van Essen with five felonies.

“We’ve never had anything like this in this town,” said Rodney Van Essen, 30. “But people know the problems I was having, and I’ve received a lot of prayerful support.”

Lais said he accompanied his client to attempt to get custody of her children because “we have the only valid custody and visitation order” in the case.

The lawyer said it was not unusual for him to travel out of state to help parents retrieve their children, noting that he recently opened an office in Munich, Germany, to handle child-custody cases there.

Lais recently sued the Center for Surrogate Parenting Inc. on behalf of Mark and Crispina Calvert, the Orange County couple who became embroiled in the county’s most noted surrogacy case.