By Dr. Leon Koziol

Parenting Rights Institute

Don’t miss our next bi-weekly program (Mondays and Thursdays) featuring guests and callers who assist one another in family court reform and accountability.

On Memorial Day Monday, May 25, 2020, 7pm ET, we will feature Steve Boyd and Rosa Montilla of the Gabriella Boyd Foundation, a reform group dedicated to the memory of 2-year old Gabriella Boyd whose life was forever taken in gruesome manner by her mother due to a custody battle. The Foundation was also featured at our 3-day Parent March on Washington in the way of a candlelight vigil on the front lawn of the U.S. Capitol. You can view it on the video of that event below.

We will never get a chance to meet little Gabriella Boyd but she serves to remind us how precious our own children are even if we are alienated as I was by an unrepentant mother, Kelly Hawse-Koziol. She acted with the kind of evil that is similarly indescribable. How any parent could be so selfish as to take a child from the other parent remains a sick aspect of our ever deteriorating society. It’s one pain I can share with the Boyd family, and it’s one that deserves justice even if that should come from a higher power.

On the Foundation website, Steve and Rosa have managed to introduce Gabriella to us as follows:

“I was born on July 26, 2015. Two days before my daddy’s birthday. He always said ‘2015 I got my greatest birthday present and it was given to me in a hospital.’ However, shortly after July, I would not see him again until October. Family court petitions, accusations, Order of Protection, unfit Judges and lawyers resulted in me spending only 2 days a week for 9 hours a day with my Father, grandparents and the rest of my family.”

Gabriella Boyd was an innocent victim and just another statistic in the bias, backwards and outdated New York State Family Court System. Despite her father’s efforts to show the court that it was in the best interest of Gabriella that she be with him.

Big brown eyes and a bright smile, Gabriella, Gabby, Gabs, Ladybug or Mama was sure to put a smile on your face. She was a very happy little girl. Outgoing, independent, fearless, smart, clever, sneaky and a great listener. She understood a lot more than people thought she did. She would make an attempt to try anything, from taking on a new obstacle on the playground, to learning to pronounce a new letter or word.

She loved dogs, painting and drawing, playing soccer and making play dough meat balls with Nanny. She liked music, and dancing and playing the guitar with Pappy. She enjoyed walks around the park with Daddy and RoRo, and feeding the geese and the ducks. She has a special bond with Uncle Joe and Aunt Ashley where she felt safe even when Uncle Joe chased her around the house and threw her up in the air, it was built on trust and love.

Gabriella liked trucks and motorcycles, books, macaroni and cheese, and playing with her big cousins. Mama loved to bake cookies and cupcakes, all the while licking the frosting from her fingers. She helped Dada make pancakes for breakfast every Saturday at 9:30 am, where she would always set the table, pretend to cook, and if she really liked you, she would share.

Gabriella liked her naps, she liked to learn and she liked riding in the car. Holidays were special, she loved the snow and making snowman and being pulled in the sled. She was a very observant and particular little girl who loved Mickey Mouse and her two favorite dogs, Rollo and Bingo.

That’s who this beautiful little Angel was and will always be and so much more!

We Love & miss you so much

I’m a poor typist, and it took awhile to reproduce the above script from the Gabriella Boyd Foundation website. But with each word or sentence, memories of my own little girls at Gabby’s age poured out from the computer screen.

At Lake George for the holiday weekend, it was impossible to take in the scenery without fond memories of us together. I was fortunate to have many more years with my precious little ones before their mother finished a ten year crusade to permanently remove them from my life. She did so  without any report of neglect or abuse and no finding of unfit parenting.

Why I was forced to prove myself  to countless strangers in a hostile courtroom boggles the mind. But Kelly Hawse-Koziol was determined to do everything she could, from pathetically obvious fabrications to as many as five protection orders, all thrown out without my having to take any witness stand in defense.

She did all this to substitute me as the only father with a preferred millionaire who ultimately dumped her anyway and removed her and my girls from his home. In the end, Kelly Hawse-Koziol lost everything that was truly important in life, especially the loving dad who made these girls possible, unfortunately for her to exploit for greed and personal gain.

We must all learn from the experience of the Boyd family, to appreciate what we had when we did have it, and to demand a complete overhaul of a domestic court system that is seriously outdated, greed-oriented and inhumane. That’s our job as Americans particularly during an unexpected pandemic that forces us to reevaluate the manner in which we conduct our lives.

Join us Monday night, spread the word, and share your thoughts with fellow victims.