ROCKLAND, Maine — A judge has ordered the arrest of a 27-year-old Belfast man charged with criminal restraint by a parent.
Justice Jeffrey Hjelm agreed Wednesday to issue the arrest warrant after Adam Littlefield failed for the second time in a month to appear in Knox County Superior Court for a hearing on the criminal restraint charge.
Littlefield will have to pay $5,000 cash or $25,000 surety to be released once he is arrested.
Defense attorney Barry Pretzel told the judge that he made numerous attempts to contact his client without success.
Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Liberman requested the issuance of the arrest warrant and asked for cash bail to be set at $1,000. Justice Hjelm noted that the existing $300 cash bail was apparently not sufficient to make him appear and decided on the higher bail.
The $300 cash bail put up by another person will be forfeited to the state.
Littlefield was charged in September after he moved with his son, whose age was not included in court documents, and did not allow the mother to have any contact with the boy. The custody agreement issued by the court gave the mother the right to see the child every other weekend.
The mother told police that initially Adam Littlefield would hang up on her when she called to speak to her child or talk to the father about visiting the child. Eventually, the telephone number was disconnected and for seven months she was unable to reach Littlefield or her son.
Knox County Detective Dwight Burtis investigated the case and found that Littlefield had moved from the last known address and then had stayed for about a month at a motel in Stockton Springs before leaving there. The detective also checked with the Stockton Springs Elementary School and was told the child no longer attended there.
Littlefield eventually was found. He was arrested in September and charged with criminal restraint by a parent.
The boy is now with his mother, Liberman said.
Criminal restraint by a parent is a Class C crime with a maximum sentence of five years in jail.
While I don’t agree with the father denying the mother access to her son, I am a bit confused:
So the child was supposed to live with his father 85% of the time and his mother just every other weekend, and now the child is with his mother full time? If you ask me, there seems to be something wrong with this picture.
If she wasn’t granted primary custody in the first place, why is it okay for him to be with her full time now?
Easy answer….it is call the court system. They want it to appear it is in the best interest of the child, but it is not.
The best interest of children would be that the child would have the permanent residence, with the parents having to alternate visiting the child at that address.
I wouldn’t want my ex at MY residence visiting the kids! I never had anything to hide, but I’ll be damned if my ex was gonna come stay at MY house for the days he had visitation! Just where is the parent who owns the residence supposed to go if the absent parent had visitation for a weekend, or even all summer long??
The father behaved criminally and lost his right to primary custody. What is wrong is the guy used his son to get back at his ex-wife. His wife had rights, and he denied her. There are many reasons on how custody is split. Ususally weekdays would be with one parent for school. Than tha parents split the weekends. this is fairly common. I think you are assuming way too much about the mother, but seem to be ignoring that the father was violating the agreement, not to mention has failure to appear for a court date twice. Bet no one else foots his tab this time!
Just because the mother didn’t have primary custody doesn’t neccessarily mean something is wrong with the mother. This is a situation that we all know nothing about, therefore, we cannot assume why she didn’t.
Looks to me the man neglected his court date and was not notified because of his living situation. Does that warrant him losing custody of the child? Women deny visitation and just kidnap children out of state all the time and men can’t even get a court date never mind any kind of recourse.
Thomas James Ball didn’t do anything wrong and he was denied visitation with his child for 10 years! He beat his heart against the court doors to no avail. He lost his job and was behind $2000 for child support. The Court quickly moved to have HIM sent to jail for THAT. He came to court steps, dowsed himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. THAT is what Courts do to men.
http://thomasjamesball.com/
The court system is designed to control or destroy men. The fact the guy from this article got custody of his child against all those odds tells me a lot about the mother, who the Courts quickly rewarded for sending the man to jail.
From what I’ve seen, Judge Hjelm is a white knight for the radical feminists. I will never forget how Hjelm let a confessed cold blooded murderer WALK and allowed her custody of her victim’s child and all his fortune! Justice? Like she said to reporters as she pranced out of Hjelm’s courtroom…”Only in Maine could we have made out so well”.
Defense attorney Barry Pretzel told the judge that he made numerous attempts to contact his client without success. The man made himself unavailable to his lawyer and the court system. HIS FAULT, not anyone elses!
And get off your pedestal…..every case is different and we never know ALL the facts/circumstances behind each one…….just what is reported in the news.
One more child that doesn’t have a half a chance
Wow, why do you say that, do you know his mother? Or do you feel single parent families are that bad off? My father died when I was in second grade, and me and all of my siblings turned out well and I definately do not feel I only had half a chance. Methinks you are prejudiced.
My opinion has absolutely nothing to do with being a single parent in any way, shape, nor form. It has to do with 2 parents battling over their child’s custody and lawless parents who choose to ignore court orders. It seems far too many children are put in the middle of their parents’ disputes these days. I also lost my father in kindergarten and grew up by a single mom.
Lawless FATHER…….he’s the one in the wrong, not the mother! The custody was already decided to be with the father and HE screwed that up! And by him dodging the law, he is STILL screwing up.
You know, I don’t know the mother. For all I know she is a fantastic mother. Still can’t help but wonder, if that’s the case, why did she not have custody? I’ve seen to many blame games to assume this is any different.
Why do people think the worst when a mother doesn’t have custody without knowing the facts? Maybe, just maybe she is working and/or going to school full time. Since she has the child now, it couldn’t be too bad. What gets me is, this man was arrested LAST SEPTEMBER for this. How long has the child been with the mother? Another thing that gets me is, a detective found out the child was not attending school in Stockton Springs……..this is information that falls under privacy laws! Even if the detective found out, this should have not been released to the public!!
You are right about the information about where this child was attending school. I have been a school board member and that information is not privy to everyone…..especially the public! Obviously, someone released this info to the detective who then released it to the media! This is a convo that should have gone on with the superintendent and the detective and gone no further!
I think your situation was entirely different from this one!!
I’m glad to see that this man is being held accountable to this court order, however, I feel quite strongly that had he been a woman, the court would have done nothing. Our system lacks equality.
I don’t understand how you get that from this, the FATHER had primary custody, so apparently the court was not biased against the father. Unofrtuantley he used that power of custody to keep his son from seeing his mother, thinking only of himself and not of his child, he should lose custody. The child is the real loser here, all because of the actions of the person who is supposed to have the child’s best interest at heart. Don’t I wish people had to take some sort of class and exam before having children!!
None of any of this stuff between 2 fighting adults, is Ever in the “best interest “of a child— The big thing is trying to out-do each other–And the child suffers.
My thoughts exactly. Some kids just don’t stand a chance.
I grew up in a home where i was with my father during the week and my mother every other weekend. It worked out just fine for me. What i dont understand is what the situation was that the father felt he had to keep the child away from his mother.
The problem is not the parents. The problem is some judge deciding he is equal with God and he/she then decides the fate of a broken family based on ‘mans’ law which is written to gian incentive money from the government for the State. That is the core of the problem.
I know Both Father and Mother, The Father did have good reason for what he did. The child is NOT with the Mother. This is what happens when the Mother lies
If he “had a good reason for what he did” why did he not bring it back before a judge? Why did he break the court order? Why did he not allow the child to have contact with the mother, why did he run and hide the child? Why can’t the father be found now…after failing to show up in court TWICE? And last but not least, why was the child not being sent to school?