Summary: A Michigan judge said he didn’t realize he had granted a rapist joint custody of an eight-year-old boy.
A judge’s decision to allow a rapist joint custody of an eight-year-old child shocked the web when news broke this week. Now, the judge is claiming ignorance to the rapist’s past and a custody hearing is scheduled for later this month, according to CBS News.Â
In 2008, Christopher Mirasolo pled guilty to attempted third-degree criminal sexual assault. His victim said that he had raped her when she was 12-years-old, and the terrifying ordeal had resulted in a child, who is now eight.
Last month, Sanilac District Judge Gregory Ross signed an order allowing Mirasolo joint custody of his victim’s child, a decision that was made after she had applied for aid from the state of Michigan. On Tuesday, Judge Ross put his order on hold. He said that he was unaware of Mirasolo’s background when he had made the shocking decision.
The victim and her lawyer spoke to CBS News, and they said that they wanted to protect other rape victims from experiencing similar painful legal circumstances.Â
“I don’t understand why they thought they needed to give him joint legal custody. He was my rapist,” said the victim who wanted to only be identified as “Tiffany.”
Tiffany said that in 2008 Mirasolo forced himself on her inside of an abandoned house near Detroit. She said that whenever she hears her rapist’s name she has a terrible emotional reaction.
“I was kidnapped for two days. I didn’t know if I was ever going to go home. He threatened to kill me and my best friend if we told anyone,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany was 12 at the time, and she is now 21 and raising her eight-year-old son. Mirasolo served six and a half months in jail for the crime after taking a plea deal. In 2010, he served jail time again after raping another teenage victim.
With Mirasolo’s sordid history, it was a shocker that Sanilac County Prosecutor James V. Young and Judge Ross granted the rapist a paternity order that would give him joint custody of Tiffany’s child. According to WGN 9, Mirasolo’s lawyer said that the rapist had never asked for the order in the first place.
“I was receiving government assistance and they told me if I did not tell them who the father was of my child, that they would take that away from me,” Tiffany said.
Prosecutor Young’s office said that it had given Tiffany a standard order that is used in all paternity cases and that she was required to participate in order to receive government assistance. Tiffany said that this request was “crazy” and that she had successfully raised her child by herself.
“I have been taking care of him for eight years. I gave up high school, I gave up prom, I gave up my friends to raise a baby and go to work,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany’s attorney Rebecca Kiessling said that this case shows how the government still does not know how to handle rape victims who request assistance.
“There’s no policy. I’ve had rape victims who were cut off from state aid because they couldn’t name the rapist because they were abducted by a stranger or because a sex trafficker kidnapped them and raped them,” Kiessling said.
The Sanilac County prosecutor’s office said that it is conducting an investigation on the case.
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