The Truth About Ruth - Part 4

[FJismyheadship]

Probably not related BUT

I am raising my brother. Our mother went to prison and now on probation lost parental rights and can't see him till he's 18. His father is a dead beat. Neither one sends me any money for his needs he eats Alot. I am 28 and have 2 baby's of my own. Oh and I have lupus. It is very hard and very stressful to deal with all this

experienceproject.com/stories/Raise-A-Sibling/811425

Made me think of this topic.

[okayobee]

But we know PM/RR doesn't work so there's little chance she'd be using a VPN. And since she doesn't work it's not likely she'd set up a VPN service on her own ($$). If she were capable of that she would have been a whole lot smarter than she was. She could have simply used free proxies for the same result but she didn't do that either. I think the coincidences are too great that these are two different people. Even disregarding the IP information - both were on the same rip and took the same route and both started scrubbing their FB and blog at the same time. Both are accused of scamming people. What are the odds that two scammers unknown to each other would have so much in common?

[Closed Womb]

It's hard to tell how much fighting there was from the court proceedings. They did some to an agreement, but a lot can happen between the filling and the agreement. Also the original custody arrangement was pretty close to 50/50, which is typical these days. The changes came later.

Pm gets a little bit of child support because of how CA calculates child support. Mainly, they look at both parents income, the amount of time the children spends in each home, and then come up with a figure. Since pm makes nothing, and her ex presumably makes a fair amount, she gets a small support payment. Not all states work that way.

It's looking like PM makes plenty. It'd be nice for her scamming/sad story income to be added into the court's calculations.

[okayobee]

PM takes such pride in telling people how smart she is, how she finished school early and even pretends to be a doctor. She also claimed to homeschool but there's no evidence of that especially since the custody arrangement the past few years showed she only had the kids some of the time. The reality is looking like she never had a career of any sort, never homeschooled and if college educated never worked in her field. She's online far too much to work a full time job. SO where is her income coming from? I still suspect she's on disability. Is that public information?

[BornOKThe1stTime]

I spent some time reading [redacted] online family court proceedings this morning. I have been an expert witness in custody matters in family court in CA for many years. The online information only documents the bare-bones part of the proceedings. The interesting stuff about the Petitioner and Respondent's complaints, claims, and psychological information is left out. However, there were a few things "between the lines" that stood out to me while perusing the documents.

The first thing I noticed is that a 730 evaluation was ordered right off. A 730 evaluation in CA happens on the order of a judge when psychological issues may be relevant to custody decisions. The 730 evaluation is done by an experienced, licensed mental health professional, usually a psychologist. These evaluations are long, extensive, and very expensive. The ones I've been involved in have cost the participants anywhere between $5000 and $15,000 to complete and can cost even more depending on how extensive the evaluation turns out to be. The evaluation entails interviews with all family members, psychological testing, review of relevant documentation, and sometimes home visits and contact with auxiliary individuals who are involved with the family. A lengthy report is issued to the court to assist the judge in making custody decisions. I've seen those documents be as long as 100 pages. In my experience in family court, it is pretty rare for a judge to order a 730 right off the bat unless there is already a LOT of psychological weirdness going on in the family. Because 730s are so costly, time-consuming, and potentially stressful for the children, judges in my experience are reluctant to order them unless a divorce has been on-goingly very contentious or unless there is really good evidence that one or the other parent is potentially somewhat psychologically disturbed. The fact that the custody aspect of the divorce proceedings ended up with Dad being given full physical custody and permission to take the children across the country suggests that he was petitioning for full custody with claims of Mom's psychological instability from the get-go. For a parent to do that and have a judge order a 730 right off, usually there is a pretty fucked up parent in the mix, with some pretty good initial evidence supporting it.

The next thing I noticed was that a Children's Attorney was appointed right off too. A Children's Attorney is appointed when the family situation is so messed up that the judge feels the children need their own representation to speak for their best interest because the parents may not be able to. In my experience, usually this step happens much later in a very contentious divorce/custody process. Things must have been VERY fucked up from the time of the filing for an attorney to be appointed so quickly for the kids.

The divorce/custody proceedings have been ongoing for several years, which is normal when a custody fight with 730 evaluation is happening. I'm guessing that [redacted] was fighting to retain custody. I often see this in parents whose primary motivation seems to be keeping the child support checks coming. I noticed initially in the proceedings when [redacted] was sharing custody that she was receiving a large child support payment each month (something around $2000) but later when the children were with their father more of the time, her child support was dropped way down. If [redacted] is RR and it's all about the money, losing the custody fight must have been very costly for her.

The next thing I noticed was the number of hearings where [redacted]'s attorney was present. Going rate for Family Law attorneys in CA is $250-$500 an hour, or more. A contested divorce can easily cost $100,000. I didn't see where Dad was ordered to pay all fees, so [redacted]'s legal costs must be very high. Another reason why, if [redacted] is RR, she might be looking to scam a bunch of money.

As other posters have said, it isn't that unusual these days for dads to petition for full custody of their children. I've supported cases where this was the obvious choice in the best interest of the children. But for any parent to get full custody AND permission to move the children all the way across the country away from the other "involved" parent is a VERY big deal. CA judges seem to be especially reluctant to grant this permission. In the many cases I've worked on in over 25 years of clinical work, I've only seen two cases where a family court judge permitted this, after years of custody battling. In both cases, the non-custodial parent was a psychological disaster as manifested by well-documented extremely BIZARRE behavior around the children for YEARS during the time of the custody hearings.

I know nothing about [redacted] and and what happened with her custody proceedings other than what is available publicly. My speculations may be way off. But, in my years of experience, this is what I would postulate based on the information at hand.

[BornOKThe1stTime]

(Apologies for all the necessary redactions in the previous post. Newbie here, still a bit confused about the rules.) :embarrassed: :embarrassed: :embarrassed:

[Ralar]

I spent some time reading [redacted] online family court proceedings this morning. I have been an expert witness in custody matters in family court in CA for many years. The online information only documents the bare-bones part of the proceedings. The interesting stuff about the Petitioner and Respondent's complaints, claims, and psychological information is left out. However, there were a few things "between the lines" that stood out to me while perusing the documents.

The first thing I noticed is that a 730 evaluation was ordered right off. A 730 evaluation in CA happens on the order of a judge when psychological issues may be relevant to custody decisions. The 730 evaluation is done by an experienced, licensed mental health professional, usually a psychologist. These evaluations are long, extensive, and very expensive. The ones I've been involved in have cost the participants anywhere between $5000 and $15,000 to complete and can cost even more depending on how extensive the evaluation turns out to be. The evaluation entails interviews with all family members, psychological testing, review of relevant documentation, and sometimes home visits and contact with auxiliary individuals who are involved with the family. A lengthy report is issued to the court to assist the judge in making custody decisions. I've seen those documents be as long as 100 pages. In my experience in family court, it is pretty rare for a judge to order a 730 right off the bat unless there is already a LOT of psychological weirdness going on in the family. Because 730s are so costly, time-consuming, and potentially stressful for the children, judges in my experience are reluctant to order them unless a divorce has been on-goingly very contentious or unless there is really good evidence that one or the other parent is potentially somewhat psychologically disturbed. The fact that the custody aspect of the divorce proceedings ended up with Dad being given full physical custody and permission to take the children across the country suggests that he was petitioning for full custody with claims of Mom's psychological instability from the get-go. For a parent to do that and have a judge order a 730 right off, usually there is a pretty fucked up parent in the mix, with some pretty good initial evidence supporting it.

The next thing I noticed was that a Children's Attorney was appointed right off too. A Children's Attorney is appointed when the family situation is so messed up that the judge feels the children need their own representation to speak for their best interest because the parents may not be able to. In my experience, usually this step happens much later in a very contentious divorce/custody process. Things must have been VERY fucked up from the time of the filing for an attorney to be appointed so quickly for the kids.

The divorce/custody proceedings have been ongoing for several years, which is normal when a custody fight with 730 evaluation is happening. I'm guessing that [redacted] was fighting to retain custody. I often see this in parents whose primary motivation seems to be keeping the child support checks coming. I noticed initially in the proceedings when [redacted] was sharing custody that she was receiving a large child support payment each month (something around $2000) but later when the children were with their father more of the time, her child support was dropped way down. If [redacted] is RR and it's all about the money, losing the custody fight must have been very costly for her.

The next thing I noticed was the number of hearings where [redacted]'s attorney was present. Going rate for Family Law attorneys in CA is $250-$500 an hour, or more. A contested divorce can easily cost $100,000. I didn't see where Dad was ordered to pay all fees, so [redacted]'s legal costs must be very high. Another reason why, if [redacted] is RR, she might be looking to scam a bunch of money.

As other posters have said, it isn't that unusual these days for dads to petition for full custody of their children. I've supported cases where this was the obvious choice in the best interest of the children. But for any parent to get full custody AND permission to move the children all the way across the country away from the other "involved" parent is a VERY big deal. CA judges seem to be especially reluctant to grant this permission. In the many cases I've worked on in over 25 years of clinical work, I've only seen two cases where a family court judge permitted this, after years of custody battling. In both cases, the non-custodial parent was a psychological disaster as manifested by well-documented extremely BIZARRE behavior around the children for YEARS during the time of the custody hearings.

I know nothing about [redacted] and and what happened with her custody proceedings other than what is available publicly. My speculations may be way off. But, in my years of experience, this is what I would postulate based on the information at hand.

This attorney agrees, although I am nfamiliar with the term 730 as I am from a different state.

[Stephanie66]

PM takes such pride in telling people how smart she is, how she finished school early and even pretends to be a doctor. She also claimed to homeschool but there's no evidence of that especially since the custody arrangement the past few years showed she only had the kids some of the time. The reality is looking like she never had a career of any sort, never homeschooled and if college educated never worked in her field. She's online far too much to work a full time job. SO where is her income coming from? I still suspect she's on disability. Is that public information?

I would think that if she were on SSDI (Federal disability via Social Security) a circuit court judge in Bakersfield, CA wouldn't have decided she was capable of working full time. SSDI, even if some people are getting it fraudulently, is not an easy thing to get and I don't think the judge would have the authority to override their decision.

So, my guess is she *may* have lupus, but she either is in the process of obtaining SSDI (which can take years) or there is nothing medically disabling about her. She is pretty miraculous, though, having a baby after a complete hysterectomy, so maybe she has lupus that turns on and off, according to how the stars align. :cray-cray:

[Ralar]

She is pretty miraculous, though, having a baby after a complete hysterectomy, so maybe she has lupus that turns on and off, according to how the stars align. :cray-cray:

Hey, If DeDe Can Be Eleventy Months Pregnan With Gay GrEg.' Post Vasectomy Baby, Why Can't She Have A Post Hysterectomy Baby?

ETA: I Have No Idea Why Every Word Got Capitalized.

[Stephanie66]

Why She Might Still Have Lupus: (heh) There are a few diseases that are easier to get SSDI for. I believe Lupus is not one of them. Breast Cancer most definitely is not (although both are easier than a mental illness, apparently)

My future brother-in-law is on SSDI for reasons I am not clear about. He had some surgeries years ago, but seems fine now, except for the occasional temper tantrums, hoarding, and very selective OCD. When I went off about him not working while I, on chemotherapy, was really trying hard to work part time, my fiance just said, "Do YOU want to work with him?" Good question.

So, as undeserving as PM is, IF she really has lupus (or, more likely, is batshit crazy) I don't have a huge objection to her getting SSDI. It comes with Medicare and Medicaid, so maybe she can see a shrink and get better. And isn't it better the taxpayer's legitimate money than basically stealing it from unsuspecting and kind strangers on the internet? And really, do any of us want to be her co-workers?

If she doesn't have lupus, I guess some place, somewhere, will indeed be stuck with her. Maybe she can do those jobs where they spam other blogs. Then no one in real life has to deal with her.

[Curious]

Or it could just be that two people who have no connection are using the same vpn service, that allocates certain locations/ip's from a range. Example, my coworker and I were commenting on a web article. He was in Kentucky and I was in Michigan. However, we both were using the same VPN service that made my posts appear from London England and he connected to the Chicago option. So, you can basically fool anyone you want, just by having enough locations with your VPN service. RR wouldn't have gotten caught if she'd kept track of what character was where and used the appropriate VPN connection to give it credibility.

Again, the odds of 2 people picking the same VPN exactly the same way, one of whom just happens to be a member of FJ that has an anon blog and one that just happens to have been involved in a scheme before has to be astronomical. In addition (again), we can tell when people are using proxies and VPN servers in the vast majority of cases. There is no indication that is the case for any of the ip addresses used by RR.

[Curious]

In reading up on the Penn Mommy stuff, from what I gleaned someone gathered up all the info on PM/PM et al, printed it out and mailed the hard copies to PM's now ex-husband. It was soon after that that he filed for divorce.

Just thinking about things logically, he must know that IF she has lupus it's not as bad as she is claiming online (re: the sun sensitivity) so if he comes home one day and suddenly there is very expensive UV film on the door step that might start him going hmmm.... Then a little while later, he gets a packet of information that shows his wife is all over the internet saying she's had a heart attack, a hysterectomy, scarlet fever, made up a son who died etc that was probably the final straw and he filed for divorce and likely used that stuff at least partially as grounds why he should have custody.

There was also speculation that she was posting on her own and other blogs as her 2 oldest children. It was either that or she was letting her children post defending her, thus reading about the various situations she was involved in.

If those were my kids, I would certainly bring that up to the judge straight away, so I think the kids having an attorney to represent them from the get go makes sense.

[Mustang Sally]

Relevant reading material I happened across today - http://www.xojane.com/issues/it-happene ... -a-catfish - no need to break the link, obvs.

[Ruby Slippers]

Ugh. Can the link be taken down to the divorce proceedings? It's got her kids' names and-- I think from a skim of it-- suggestions from their doctors / counselors. :(

I feel gross that I looked at it now. I thought it would have fun shit from her ex- husband about what a loon she is.

[Stephanie66]

She has put her own kids' names out there. It's not like anyone is going to do anything with them. I don't even remember the older two, and the younger two are on her facebook.

[Curious]

Ugh. Can the link be taken down to the divorce proceedings? It's got her kids' names and-- I think from a skim of it-- suggestions from their doctors / counselors. :(

I feel gross that I looked at it now. I thought it would have fun shit from her ex- husband about what a loon she is.

That horse left the barn a long time ago. We don't allow their names to be used here and neither does TAR. She puts the kids names out there far more often than they are used in the public court docs. I only saw one reference using the kids names, every other time they were referred to as minor children or the 2 oldest minor children, the 2 youngest minor children, etc.

[Whipple]

So sorry I'm late to the party on RR but I just learned of this and am still trying to process where I and so many others went wrong in ignoring/not seeing the flags. (So if anyone wants to go back to the child custody situation, that's fine.)

RR has actually been on my mind off and on since I learned of this late last week. Last night I went back through the RR blog where RR first announced Rachel's pregnancy. At the time, something didn't ring true for me about RR's characterization of the baby's father and his family but I couldn't put my finger on it. I realize now that it was because Ruth didn't talk about her sister's feelings as in "Rachel says that XX is a complete liar and is afraid" or "Rachel says that the family has ostracized her, etc." Instead Ruth created two characters who "probably" got it on at an ATI conference and, as another has said, was an omniscient narrator in the telling. Also, if Rachel was telling RR about the pregnancy don't you think she would have told her the specifics of where she had sex instead of Ruth having to speculate?

Also, I know that when my son wrote an essay about his father's experience as a veteran (for a scholarship he won) so much of it was "My dad tells me that..." It took a lot of time for him to set up the story of he and his dad because he had to comment on emotions, feelings, and conversations and the impact of his dad's experiences on their relationship. RR just breezed through all of that. Ruth's inability to take the perspective of others might have been a "tell."

[Ms Jess]

That's a great observation, Whipple. I agree.

[okayobee]

I spent some time reading [redacted] online family court proceedings this morning. I have been an expert witness in custody matters in family court in CA for many years. The online information only documents the bare-bones part of the proceedings. The interesting stuff about the Petitioner and Respondent's complaints, claims, and psychological information is left out. However, there were a few things "between the lines" that stood out to me while perusing the documents.

The first thing I noticed is that a 730 evaluation was ordered right off. A 730 evaluation in CA happens on the order of a judge when psychological issues may be relevant to custody decisions. The 730 evaluation is done by an experienced, licensed mental health professional, usually a psychologist. These evaluations are long, extensive, and very expensive. The ones I've been involved in have cost the participants anywhere between $5000 and $15,000 to complete and can cost even more depending on how extensive the evaluation turns out to be. The evaluation entails interviews with all family members, psychological testing, review of relevant documentation, and sometimes home visits and contact with auxiliary individuals who are involved with the family. A lengthy report is issued to the court to assist the judge in making custody decisions. I've seen those documents be as long as 100 pages. In my experience in family court, it is pretty rare for a judge to order a 730 right off the bat unless there is already a LOT of psychological weirdness going on in the family. Because 730s are so costly, time-consuming, and potentially stressful for the children, judges in my experience are reluctant to order them unless a divorce has been on-goingly very contentious or unless there is really good evidence that one or the other parent is potentially somewhat psychologically disturbed. The fact that the custody aspect of the divorce proceedings ended up with Dad being given full physical custody and permission to take the children across the country suggests that he was petitioning for full custody with claims of Mom's psychological instability from the get-go. For a parent to do that and have a judge order a 730 right off, usually there is a pretty fucked up parent in the mix, with some pretty good initial evidence supporting it.

The next thing I noticed was that a Children's Attorney was appointed right off too. A Children's Attorney is appointed when the family situation is so messed up that the judge feels the children need their own representation to speak for their best interest because the parents may not be able to. In my experience, usually this step happens much later in a very contentious divorce/custody process. Things must have been VERY fucked up from the time of the filing for an attorney to be appointed so quickly for the kids.

The divorce/custody proceedings have been ongoing for several years, which is normal when a custody fight with 730 evaluation is happening. I'm guessing that [redacted] was fighting to retain custody. I often see this in parents whose primary motivation seems to be keeping the child support checks coming. I noticed initially in the proceedings when [redacted] was sharing custody that she was receiving a large child support payment each month (something around $2000) but later when the children were with their father more of the time, her child support was dropped way down. If [redacted] is RR and it's all about the money, losing the custody fight must have been very costly for her.

The next thing I noticed was the number of hearings where [redacted]'s attorney was present. Going rate for Family Law attorneys in CA is $250-$500 an hour, or more. A contested divorce can easily cost $100,000. I didn't see where Dad was ordered to pay all fees, so [redacted]'s legal costs must be very high. Another reason why, if [redacted] is RR, she might be looking to scam a bunch of money.

As other posters have said, it isn't that unusual these days for dads to petition for full custody of their children. I've supported cases where this was the obvious choice in the best interest of the children. But for any parent to get full custody AND permission to move the children all the way across the country away from the other "involved" parent is a VERY big deal. CA judges seem to be especially reluctant to grant this permission. In the many cases I've worked on in over 25 years of clinical work, I've only seen two cases where a family court judge permitted this, after years of custody battling. In both cases, the non-custodial parent was a psychological disaster as manifested by well-documented extremely BIZARRE behavior around the children for YEARS during the time of the custody hearings.

I know nothing about [redacted] and and what happened with her custody proceedings other than what is available publicly. My speculations may be way off. But, in my years of experience, this is what I would postulate based on the information at hand.

This is awesome insight - thank you.

[mebeforee]

Just a thought about VPN - I'm currently living in England and have been for several months, and in order to have access to certain online services (netflix, my steam account, etc) I use the HMA VPN. It does cost money but it's really not very much, I think about $8 a month when I started. However, depending on RR's actual financial situation, this still may be something she can't waste money on, in which case her IP addresses would be accurate to her actual location. This VPN is the one I chose because it is extremely reliable, easy to use, and inexpensive. I assume she'd be looking for the same thing. But if she is telling the truth about her finances, she doesn't have the money for a program to change her IP for her. So if she's using a pay program, she's lying. If she's not, she's still lying, because the IP would be accurate.

But why would she bother with an IP changer, anyway? Judging from her claims about people tracking her down, the information she puts up voluntarily in her blog is more than enough for multiple strangers to locate her. Changing her IP would be pointless for anonymity if she is so blatant with details of her travel. Also, why would she bother using it just to sign into FJ? Do people regularly change their IP just to sign into a forum that has TOS to keep those IP private? It doesn't make sense that she would do that. It sounds like people have been doubting her for years now, so why would this moment of doubt be the one where people got involved enough to check her IP? Watching everything unfold, it seems like she'd need psychic powers to predict that this would be the time she'd need her computer to back up her lies...

[mebeforee]

Since I'm somewhat incoherent in that post, I'm just clarifying my thought from the end. She would have no reason to fake her IP on FJ, when the site has TOS that keep the IP logs private. Her REAL location would not be revealed explicitly here. So she would have no reason to use a fake IP and every reason to use her real one, unless she is lying about her trip/job/location/life/etc.

[Whipple]

Since I'm somewhat incoherent in that post, I'm just clarifying my thought from the end. She would have no reason to fake her IP on FJ, when the site has TOS that keep the IP logs private. Her REAL location would not be revealed explicitly here. So she would have no reason to use a fake IP and every reason to use her real one, unless she is lying about her trip/job/location/life/etc.

I agree with you Mebeforee! This whole IP address argument is RR grasping at straws! She's been found out and only her most loyal followers (who have a lot invested in her story) would believe her now!

[jojo]

Oh my.....

http://www.truth-about-ruth.com/the-cur ... omment-479

[stonefruit]

Oh my.....

http://www.truth-about-ruth.com/the-cur ... omment-479

?

What's triggering your "oh my" here?

[Artemis]

I saw this earlier.

She's just lost me. I am NOT donating online. I can't believe that the blog has gone down this route.

For all we know, this could be ANOTHER PM/RR scam.