Judge Awards Custody of Girl, 8, to Man With No Blood Ties to Her

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

Superior Court Judge Martha Goldin 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 Thomas, 46, a bill collector 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 in more than three years last Christmas, 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 the final--twist in a highly publicized and controversial legal dispute in which Kevin Thomas, who had been a 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 the mother’s visitation rights and named Kevin Thomas the girl’s legal father, even though he never claimed blood ties to Courtney.

But in November, a state appeals court reversed that decision, saying it could pave the way for any baby-sitter, friend or stepparent to assert their 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 press, Kevin Thomas said afterward that he had been found to be the child’s better guardian.

His attorney, Glen Schwartz, a specialist in paternity rights, contended that Courtney’s mother effectively had 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, an office manager and former North Hills resident who now lives in Las Vegas with her younger son, asserted that she and her sons had attempted a number of times to contact Courtney, but their “calls were not returned.”

Personal visits, if agreed to by the court, would have been too costly, she said, not just for travel but for such expenses as hiring a person to monitor the meetings because Catherine Thomas 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.”