Concealing a Child Is No Solution
Video Transcribed: Can a parent kidnap his or her own child? Hi, I’m Ty Smith, an Oklahoma City attorney with Wirth Law Office, and the brief answer is yes, which may sound counterintuitive. You might say, “Ty, those are my kids. How can I be prosecuted for kidnapping a child that’s mine?”
Well, if the state’s going to go after you for kidnapping, it’s going to be because you legally didn’t have custody, or you weren’t supposed to have the kids. So I am talking to non-nuclear families here. If it’s your ex-spouse’s or ex … the mother or father of your child’s weekend to have the kid, and you just abscond, you intentionally don’t … you remove the kid from them. The statutory word is if you maliciously, forcibly or fraudulently conceal a child from anyone who has custodial rights over that child, that is kidnapping, and that includes if you are the parent.
So it doesn’t matter. You didn’t have a right to have that child, you stand … It’s possible that you can be convicted of kidnapping. It’s imperative that you follow the rules that the court has laid down for the custodial arrangement of a kid. Unless the kid is in some type of imminent danger, that means you shouldn’t take him over there, in which case, you should involve the police for that. Unless that’s the case, listen and follow the custody arrangement. Otherwise, you are the one that’s going to be in trouble.
If you would like to speak to an attorney about this, I would love to be that attorney. I do family law and criminal law, and so this meanders and sits between the two. If you’re convicted of kidnapping, that’s criminal, but you should definitely follow the custody order and that’s family. So if you want to talk to an attorney about it, I would love to talk to you about it. Once more, I’m Ty Smith, a child custody attorney in Oklahoma. You can find me at the oklahomacityattorney.com, and you can call my office at (405) 888-5400. I’d be glad to speak to you about this.
