My name is Jennifer Criswell. For the record, I am a woman, a daughter, and a mother. I am not a criminal, I am not a danger to my child, and I am not the one to blame for this nightmare. This is not the story of a family dispute; it is the story of psychological warfare, and it begins with an act of protection that was twisted into a weapon.

The custody arrangement that placed my child with me for the summer and holidays was not a spontaneous decision; it was a right granted to me in our four-year-old parenting plan. I was simply exercising the rights that had already been agreed upon.

The true catalyst for this nightmare was my discovery of the emotional and mental abuse being inflicted on my child through messages exchanged between her and the Father's wife. I immediately did what any responsible parent would do: I addressed Thomas about the disturbing messages. We talked about what needed to occur to ensure our child was protected from this exposure. He told me he would speak to his wife, look at the messages for details, and handle this from his end. I trusted that we would resolve this issue privately, as co-parents.

That trust was my fatal mistake. Without discussing it further, and without any warning, Thomas called the police and removed our child. I have been fighting every single day since that moment. That long-standing, agreed-upon summer stay became the foundation of their entire case against me. In a courtroom in Kenai, Alaska, they took our safety plan and painted it as a crime, ignoring the existing agreement and accusing me of kidnapping.

Their plan was as cruel as it was calculated. They began poisoning my child's mind, telling her I had abandoned her, that I wasn’t a 'real mom.' They coached her and her stepsister, teaching them the art of manipulation and feeding them lies to repeat. They handed my child a script and made her perform, turning her into a pawn for the sole purpose of erasing me from her life.

The central, fabricated claims used to initiate the Protective Orders and Custody Modification included:

• Accused I engaged in child trafficking.
• Accused that I took the children to a "bad part of town" to buy drugs.
• Claimed I placed pills in the children’s Kool-Aid.
• Told the court I left the children in a car while going into a bar with a gun, returning "covered in blood."
• Said that I kidnapped and abused my child.

The most outrageous of these coached lies was a fabrication that my child feared I would 'kill her and her family’—a monstrous allegation that became the key for the domestic violence protective order against me. A mother lost her child on the basis of a lie.

For months, I lived in a fog of fear and confusion, feeling constantly monitored. Then, the first crack in their perfect plan appeared. On my child's phone, I found a message from the Father's wife that exposed everything. This led to a conversation I recorded on video—a moment that shattered my heart but confirmed the brutal truth.

I possess an hour-long video with a transcript of a conversation where my child and her stepsister admit that the plan was something they needed to keep quiet from my family and me, confirming a message I read on their phone sent by the stepmother. The girls said, "we are sorry, It's what she wanted to hear from us.” I asked, "Why did she want to hear that?" They replied: “So we can go to sea world next summer.” This transcript directly contradicts the narrative of organic trauma, yet the court continuously refused to admit or consider this powerful exculpatory evidence.

Furthermore, a 10-month investigation report, conducted by Detective Karen Ferullo in Glendale, Arizona, concluded that the allegations were false and more than likely premeditated by the stepmother. This report, which exonerated me, was repeatedly over looked by Judge Jennifer Wells, Judge Kimberly Sweet then dismissed by  Judge Michelle Higuchi as hearsay.

The custody case culminated in a motion hearing before Judge Jennifer Wells on October 12, 2022. The Father’s counsel, Joseph Miller, Esq. (a highly influential former Superior Court Judge who also worked with Judge Wells in Palmer), successfully argued my case away. My evidence was not admitted, my testimony was suppressed, and the court awarded the Father sole legal and physical custody.

The core justification for granting sole custody was found in Paragraph 8 of the 10/12/2022 Judgment. The court claimed to have heard from my child’s counselor, Ms. Curene Watson, who reported my child was "angry with her mother and would prefer no contact," and was "afraid her mother would kidnap her."

Critical Detail: Ms. Watson offered this testimony and opinion despite never having spoken to or met me. The court's acceptance of an opinion from a counselor who had zero contact with the Respondent is a severe violation of procedural due process.

Following the judgment, a related Protective Order dated October 17, 2022, stated my only path to contact was: "Ms. Criswell may have contact with her child only as recommended by and supervised by the counselor." This condition was immediately rendered an impossible legal nullity.

I attempted to follow the court's order by contacting the Peninsula Community Health Services (PCHS) Behavioral Health office, by phone, email, and repeated in-person visits for the next month. On November 15, 2022, I recorded a conversation with Jett Rigby, a representative/head of the Behavioral Health department at PCHS, who confirmed on the record that PCHS "after speaking with the father, we will not provide this service, we do not get that involved in situations as this" and told me I needed to notify the Court and request a different way to connect.

This blockade is compounded by a systemic conflict of interest: Margaret McIntosh, who is the family of the Father's wife, was formerly the lead of the children's Behavioral Health at PCHS—the very organization that blocked the court-ordered reunification. The Protective Order has been repeatedly and unlawfully extended for four years, serving as a de facto termination of parental rights and an instrument of parental alienation. It continues to state that reunification is up to PCHS. The opposing party’s family connections within law enforcement, government officials, court employees, and behavioral health specialists have resulted in a misuse of power restricting my connection.

Since my child was removed from my care, her physical and emotional health has catastrophically declined, a situation the Father and the Court are attempting to blame on me retroactively.

My child, previously a straight-A, thriving child with no history of trauma, has been sent away. I discovered through third parties (a social media post by the Father's father) that my child had suffered a severe incident requiring immediate intervention. Furthermore, my child has been going through hell, and I have no knowledge of her whereabouts and am denied the ability to consent with her wellness plan or treatment.

In November 2023, I found out (from external sources) my child suffered a broken arm after an incident with her stepmother, followed immediately by her placement away from the home. I was told that this, along with everything else occurring to my child, was my fault.

As a legal parent, I have been systematically denied all access to my child's medical, psychiatric, and educational records, a clear violation of HIPAA and FERPA when no termination order exists.

The Father and his counsel have tried to explain this trauma away by blaming my alleged "prenatal toxins," a claim entirely unsupported by any medical or legal history. This is used to explain away the visible trauma the child is experiencing while in the Father's custody.

I fear the severity of my child's decline is not typical of a child who was thriving prior to removal, and the denial of records prevents me from seeking a vital forensic toxicological investigation.

The totality of these facts points to a coordinated effort to suppress me and protect the Father through the abuse of state power:

• Political Leverage: The Father’s family ties create an insurmountable power imbalance. Opposing Counsel Joseph Miller is a former Superior Court Judge. The Father’s Grandfather is reportedly a former Chief of Police in Kenai and a former FBI agent in Anchorage. His mother worked as a personal secretary for the mayor, where she retired. His uncle Tom owns an investigating company (according to LinkedIn, my ex is his business partner). Another uncle spent many years as the warden at Wildwood. The list goes on.
• Targeted Harassment: I have been subjected to hacking, stalking, loss of employment, manufactured "havoc," and the horrifying posting of a fake obituary announcing my death on April 8, 2024—a cruel act intended to solidify the alienation, for which I was also blamed.
• First Amendment Violation: The Court ordered me to take down my personal website and social media documenting my story, an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. At the hearing in May 2025, the judge stated my display of concern and love was a "danger," and that my failure to understand this displays "the type of mother I am and I should be ashamed."
• Constitutional Violation (42 U.S.C. § 1983): State officials (Judges, PCHS officials) acting "under color of law" have systematically stripped me of my constitutional rights to Procedural and Substantive Due Process and Free Speech.

My fight is no longer just a custody battle; it is a battle against a systemic apparatus of corruption and influence that has weaponized the judicial system to strip me of my child and my civil liberties. I am alone, relentlessly pursued by a powerful family network, yet I remain steadfast in my determination to save my child from a path of severe, self-destructive trauma inflicted under the custody of the Father.

This is my story; this is my reason for change. The current situation demands immediate federal intervention via a Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit (§ 1983) and a full-scale external investigation into the judicial misconduct and conflicts of interest in the Kenai Peninsula.