Judge releases 'jailed' kids, sends them to summer camp

Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca lifted her contempt of court rulings Friday and ordered the release of three children at the center of a contentious child visitation case.

The decision means the kids won't spent the summer in the county's juvenile detention center where they have been housed for the past few weeks.

"The court agrees with the children's guardian's recommendation as to the best interests of the children," Gorcyca said this afternoon. "The court finds that is in the children's best interests to grant the father's and the guardian ad litem's motion to allow the children to attend summer camp. Children's Village is to facilitate the transportation."

The children did not attend the hearing. They'll be going to a Jewish summer camp where programs typically run for two weeks. It's unclear what will happen to them when it concludes, although it appears a custody battle could be looming.

"That's up to the judge," said Lisa Stern, an attorney for the mother, Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni.

The attorney for the father, who lives in Israel, said she plans on filing a motion to grant him custody of the two boys and their sister.

Gorcyca's decision came during a court hearing this afternoon called to review the case of three siblings who refused the judge's order to meet with their estranged father.

The case has drawn international attention and Gorcyca this afternoon blasted the news media coverage, insisting she has the children's best interests at heart.

The judge noted the kids are not housed with criminal offenders in the juvenile detention facility, but instead, in a short-term housing facility known as Mandy's Place on the campus of Children's Village.

Gorcyca acknowledged that their placement there was "not ideal" but said when she sent them there, all other alternatives had been exhausted.

Brittany Kalso of Oakland County Children's Village told the court the children, two boys and a girl, are doing very well in custody, smiling and interacting with others.

"They seem to be making progress on a daily measure," Kalso said, adding they had been enjoying barbecues, nature hikes and a visit from a K-9 therapist.

The children's parents, Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni and Omer Tsimhoni, divorced five years ago and have been battling in court ever since over parenting time. On Wednesday, lawyers asked Gorcyca to reconsider the decision to lock up the children.

On June 24, Gorcyca ordered the children to be held at Children's Village after they refused her order to meet with their father.

Today, Gorcyca defended that decision.

"While this court's remedy in this particular situation may seem drastic and offensive, so too, is the notion ... that the only way to maintain a stable and loving connection with the mother is to vilify and reject the father," Gorcyca said.

Omer Tsimhoni is an internationally prominent traffic safety researcher and General Motors engineer who now lives in Israel. Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni is a pediatric eye doctor and widely known glaucoma researcher and a former assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Michigan and has an office in Canton.

In her divorce complaint, Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said that the couple married in Israel on Aug. 17, 1995, had three children between 2001 and 2005 and lived as a family in Ann Arbor until her husband accepted a job in Israel in November 2008 and moved there permanently.

Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said she was living in Bloomfield Hills in 2009 when she filed for divorce in Oakland County.

A Free Press review of filings in the case, shows Gorcyca growing increasingly frustrated with Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, whom she blamed for poisoning the children's attitude toward their father.

At today's hearing Gorcyca and the children's court-appointed guardian, William Lansat, blasted Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, for alienating the children from their father. Lansat asked Gorcyca to send the kids to the camp.

"It cannot go back to this mother," Lansat said.

Tsimhoni lives in Israel and listened to the hearing via teleconference. He didn't speak other than to state his name on the record. His lawyer, Keri Middleditch, said she planned to file a motion soon asking the court to grant the father custody of the children.

She acknowledged it couldn't be immediate.

"I can't have three kids go back to my client to make all sorts of false allegations," she said. "That's not in their best interests."

She said she's glad to hear the children are progressing, but it's going to take time before they are ready to spend time with their father.

"Five years of damage isn't going to be undone in two weeks," Middleditch said.

Eibschitz-Tsimhoni attended but didn't speak in court. Afterward in the hallway she said she was happy with the decision. She denied pitting the children against their father.

"I have never done any of the things she is saying about me," Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said. "The only thing I always said to the court is that love comes with love. You can't terrorize someone to love. You can't force somebody to love.

"I feel that when love is given, love comes back."

Asked if she wanted her children to have a relationship with their father, Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said yes.

"Absolutely," she said. "I always have and I always will."

During a June 24 hearing when she ordered them held at Oakland County Children's Village, Gorcyca found the children in contempt of court for disobeying her orders to "have a healthy relationship with your father."

The oldest boy told the judge during the hearing that he apologized for "whatever I did to you."

"But I do not apologize for — for not talking to him because I have a reason for that and that's because he's violent and he — I saw him hit my mom and I'm not gonna talk to him," the boy said, later telling the judge, "I didn't do anything wrong."

"No, you did," Gorcyca replied. "You — I ordered you to talk to your father. You chose not to talk to your father. You defied a direct court order. It's direct contempt, so I am finding you guilty of civil contempt."

After sending the older boy to Children's Village, Gorcyca gave the two younger children — a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, a chance to go to lunch with their father in the courtroom cafeteria, but they refused even after their mother urged them to do as the judge ordered.

"I'll go with my brother then," the 10-year-old told the judge.

At another point in the hearing, Gorcyca berated the mother for brainwashing her children against the father.

"Your children — you need to do a research program on Charlie Manson and the cult that he has. Your behavior in the hall with me months ago, your behavior in this courtroom ... is unlike anything I've ever seen in 46,000 cases," said Gorcyca.