AFFIDAVIT

December 22, 2005

I, Robert G. Kearns, Jr., do solemnly swear that this statement of fact and circumstances encompassing my divorce/child custody case docket # (Frederick v. Kearns) case number 96 GN 2139, before the Common Pleas Court of Blair County, PA and its intervener, hereto referred as Blair County Children and Youth Services are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.

STATEMENT OF FACT AND SURROUNDING EVENTS:

On November 25, 1996, my wife decided to break up our marriage and in doing so removed our then 9 year old daughter (Stephanie Kearns) from our marriage residence and transported her to an undisclosed location. However, I had suspected that Stephanie was lodged at the maternal grandmother's home. Accordingly, I made two efforts by telephone to communicate with my daughter and was denied contact with my wife and Stephanie by the grandmother. Subsequently, my wife disconnected all contact and communication with me and Stephanie for a period of nearly two weeks.

While going through papers, notes and letters left in the marriage residence, I had discovered a poem written by my step daughter that graphically described a daughter being molested by her mother. Carelessly and ignorantly, my sister revealed this poem to her gynecologist. Immediately, the gynecologist informed my sister that she is bound by law to contact child protective authorities. My sister was given the ultimatum to have Stephanie in her office for an examination by 4:00 p.m. that day or CYS would be notified to pull my daughter from the mother's care. Since I had not seen my daughter for nearly two weeks and had no contact with her, I was left with a serious dilemma. After contacting my attorney, Donald Speice, and telling him of my position, he advised I was still within my legal rights to take Stephanie to this doctor's appointment. When my sister and I went to the Calvary Baptist school that afternoon to pick Stephanie up, we were stunned at what we found. Stephanie was traumatized and appeared to be in a lethargic state of shock from what her mother had done to her. When my daughter began to respond to my presence the first words out of her mouth was does my mom know you are here and did you ask her if you can take me.

It wasn't until December 11, 1996, that I was given my first court ordered visitation with Stephanie. The standard every other weekend order. While these short visitation periods with me served to slow Stephanie's emotional deterioration, she began expressing her fears to return home to her mother after her weekend visits with me and the paternal family. She would display her anxiety to return to her mother's residence by hiding in corners of the house, or she would sit on the staircase and punch her fist into the carpeting, and when we were outdoors she would repeatedly kick at the ground pleading with me and my family not to take her back to her mother.

In February 1997, I picked Stephanie up on a Friday night to begin one of my weekend visits, I and my family noticed that Stephanie was missing most of her eyelashes, was showing signs of pulling the hair out of her head, and was missing the hair on her arms. Stephanie then began to tell everyone she met that she wanted to live with me (her dad). Because Stephanie's situation did not change, she began to fall into a deep depression and her emotional health deteriorated further.

Rather than the court making a radical custody visitation adjustment to correct Stephanie's failing emotional health, Ilissa Zimmerman, Esq., Stephanie's appointed guardian ad item, petitioned the court to have psychologist Dr. Nancy D. Baker council Stephanie to help her adjust to a situation that she had grown to hate. While my attorney expressed his objections to Dr. Baker counseling my daughter, Ms. Zimmerman stayed the course. Judge Jolene Kopriva granted Ms. Zimmerman's petition.

Around March 1997, Stephanie's emotions outwardly surfaced verbally when she disclosed to me an incident that took place the night her mother removed her from our home. Stephanie told me that she never wanted to leave that night with her mother. I asked Stephanie if so, why she didn't cry out for help? Stephanie said she couldn't because Jandora (her half-sister) was holding a knife to kill you, if you caught us leaving. Steph said Jandora held her other hand over my mouth so I couldn't yell out to you. Stephanie said she tried to resist her mother taking her away, but her mother grabbed her arms and gouged her fingernails into her skin until her arms bled. She was then dragged to the van. The following day I notified Attorney Speice of Stephanie's disclosure.

Consecutively, in March and April 1997, Dr. Baker had her first intake interview with me and my wife separately before beginning to counsel Stephanie. On my daughter's first counseling appointment with Dr. Baker, I was advised that she referred Stephanie to psychiatrist Richard Hill who maintained an office in Dr. Baker's building. Without ever talking with my daughter, Dr. Baker told me Stephanie needed medicated basing her decision on my wife's perception that Stephanie suffered a lifelong mental illness.

In May 1997, I had taken Stephanie to Dr. Baker for a counseling session. After she finished counseling Stephanie, Ms. Baker called me into her office and began a belligerent verbal attack on me. As I was sitting at her desk Dr. Baker showed me a drawing Stephanie just drew for her that depicted the knife scene event that Stephanie told me about months earlier. It had shown Stephanie being held behind the back door of the house with her half-sister holding a long bladed knife. However, the implications of the drawing didn't alarm Dr. Baker one iota. Instead, she told me that Stephanie has developed an alignment with me that she has never heard or seen before. Dr. Baker said Stephanie just told her that she wanted to live with her daddy. Becoming agitated Dr. Baker jumped down my throat asking me what I did to make Stephanie swing her allegiance towards me. I told Dr. Baker that I never said anything to Stephanie, instead Stephanie just told me that her mother said she will be living with her and she will never get to see me again. I told Dr. Baker that Dr. Hill told my wife at our last meeting that I would never get custody of my daughter because girls belong with their mothers. Dr. Baker insisted that it was me who told Stephanie something to make her want to live with me. Needless to say, Dr. Baker overstepped her boundaries and we got into a heated verbal exchange.

By my first custody hearing on June 23, 1997, my daughter's mental health had deteriorated so dramatically under Dr. Baker's counseling that she had pulled out all her eyelashes, eyebrows, and most of the hair on her head. My daughter's only problem before Dr. Baker's involvement was depression caused by the alienation from the paternal family. Vehemently, my daughter's desires were to return home to live with her father. Driving my daughter into a deeper depression, Dr. Baker deliberately refused to acknowledge my child's problem and was looking hard to place some superfluous blame on me for Stephanie's deterioration.

During my first evidentiary custody hearing on June 23, 1997, Dr. Baker submitted her report , testified for nearly 51\2 hours and blatantly attempted to conceal the knife drawing my daughter drew for her at the counseling session in May, 1997. Accommodating my wife to retain custody of my daughter, Dr. Baker attempted to construct a tranquil and loving home life setting for her. After one short interview with my step daughter, Dr. Baker was able to endorse her as a nice church going girl of high moral values. Attorney Speice then showed Dr. Baker a photograph of my then 17 year old step daughter, exposing her breasts in the home she baby-sat in. He had shown her drawings and poetry of oral sex acts and a molestation poem that my step daughter authored and drew. He asked Dr. Baker if she considered that moral conduct and was she alarmed by anything that she looked at. Dr. Baker said nothing she saw alarmed her and it was moral behavior for 16, 17, and 18 year old girls. To chemically force my daughter's compliance and submission to accept and live with this repulsive situation, Dr. Baker highly recommended to the court that my daughter be medicated by Psychiatrist Richard Hill. Subsequently, she recommended that any visitation between my daughter and I cease. Dr. Baker suggested the suspension should be in effect for years until the drugs had time to work her desired results on Stephanie. Only after years of being medicated and only if Stephanie still desired to see her father, then some visitation could be re-established.

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