Mom’s Friend Wins 2nd Custody Ruling

For the second time in three years, a Los Angeles County judge has awarded custody of an 8-year-old girl to the man who helped raise her but has no blood ties to her, leaving the child’s biological mother with only visitation rights.

Superior Court Judge Martha Goldin on Thursday reaffirmed the ruling she made in 1993, granting sole custody of Courtney Thomas to Douglas “Kevin” Thomas despite a recent appeals court decision that stripped Thomas of his status as legal father and ordered Goldin to rehear the case.

In repeating her decision, Goldin found that returning the girl to her mother, Catherine Thomas, would prove detrimental to Courtney, who suffers from several congenital birth defects and has been cared for exclusively by Kevin Thomas since the judge’s first ruling.

“I was always confident that this would happen. . . . We left with a perfect ruling,” said an elated Kevin Thomas, 46, who moved with Courtney from Van Nuys to Orlando, Fla., six months ago. “I’m Courtney’s daddy as far as Courtney is concerned.”

Catherine Thomas, 49, whom Goldin allowed to see her daughter for the first time this Christmas in more than three years, emerged wan and subdued from the closed-door hearing.

“She would’ve been better off to be with her mother and her brothers and the rest of her family,” Thomas, a single mother who also has two sons, said quietly.

Thursday’s ruling was the latest--and possibly final--twist in a highly publicized and controversial legal dispute in which Kevin Thomas, an openly gay family friend, claimed that his involvement in Courtney’s daily care entitled him to parental rights.

During the bitter custody dispute, Catherine Thomas twice fled with Courtney in violation of court orders, saying she was panicked over the prospect of losing her daughter to Kevin Thomas, who had changed his surname from McCain to match the girl’s.

Both times, Catherine Thomas was caught and convicted of child stealing. After the second incident, Goldin revoked all her visitation rights and named Kevin Thomas the girl’s legal father, even though the bill collector never claimed any blood ties to Courtney.

But last November, a state appeals court reversed that decision, saying it could pave the way for any baby sitter, friend or stepparent to assert his or her rights over those of a biological parent. The appeals court sent the case back to Goldin, ordering that custody be awarded to Kevin Thomas over Courtney’s “natural mother” only if the judge determined that it would be in the girl’s best interests and that a return to Catherine Thomas would be detrimental.

That, apparently, is what Goldin decided Thursday after two mornings of testimony. Although the hearing was closed to the public and media, Kevin Thomas said afterward that he had been found to be the child’s better guardian.

“Her mother did not demonstrate the knowledge or the skills to parent her,” Kevin Thomas said. “Courtney has special needs that are physical and psychological and intellectual.”

His attorney, Glen Schwartz, a specialist in paternity rights, contended that Courtney’s mother had effectively abandoned her, making virtually no effort to contact the girl over the past few years. She even declined to become involved, at Kevin Thomas’ invitation, when the youngster underwent open-heart surgery in October 1993, he said.

Catherine Thomas has not “the slightest ability to meet [Courtney’s] special needs,” Schwartz said during an impromptu news conference. He also accused Catherine Thomas of having only “partial ability” to parent her two teenage sons.

But attorneys for both sides noted that the judge did not legally declare the woman unfit to care for her children.

“That’s Mr. Schwartz’s opinion,” said Michael Goch, the mother’s attorney. “There was no finding of unfitness.”

His client also asserted that she and her sons had attempted a number of times to contact Courtney, but “our calls were not returned.” Catherine Thomas, an office manager and former North Hills resident who now lives in Las Vegas with her younger son, also said that actual visits, if agreed to by the court, would have been too costly--not just for travel but for such expenses as hiring a monitor required for the meetings since she had been deemed a flight risk.

Under Thursday’s ruling, visitation rights will be phased in to reintroduce Catherine Thomas gradually into the life of her second-grade daughter, who is mildly retarded and blind in one eye. The judge permitted weekly telephone calls, then a visit over the winter holidays in Florida.

Thereafter, more frequent visits could be allowed, although Catherine Thomas expressed reservations about the distance between her and Courtney. “She’s so far away that I won’t be able to see her that often.”

“I don’t feel [it will be] awkward at all,” Kevin Thomas said about the renewing of ties. “I’ve always held up to Courtney that she has a mommy. But she doesn’t really know who her mother is.”

Catherine Thomas can still ask for further review of custody and visitation rights by local and appeals courts, now or in the future. But “the decision is just a few hours old,” Goch said. “She needs a little more time to determine what, if anything, her next move will be.”

Goch said he is hopeful the two parties will be able to work out arrangements amicably.

That could prove difficult, given the highly charged emotions surrounding the dispute from the beginning.

Catherine Thomas has accused her former friend of insinuating himself into the life of her daughter and eventually developing an unhealthy obsession beyond the baby-sitting and other assistance she had once asked of him. At one point she moved her family from the San Fernando Valley to Thousand Oaks to gain some physical and emotional distance, she said.

Kevin Thomas contends that he and Catherine had struck an agreement to raise Courtney together, and together decided to list him as the father on her birth certificate. He said he became one of the girl’s primary caregivers and that her mother ultimately grew envious of the attention and gifts he lavished on the youngster.