TJ’s Story

An Introduction to the Events of 7/30/22

The following is a procedural appraisal and deconstruction of events occurring on July 30th, 2022 in Japan as documented in a series of text messages between TJ’s mother and father. The order, timing, and contents of all texts and images have been preserved and unaltered in every respect. This deconstruction is offered to illustrate what is at the very least a paranoid delusional meltdown on the part of TJ’s biological mother, but more likely a willful manipulation of events, with the intention of emotionally blackmailing her own son and his biological father. Her histrionic text messages reveal a self-serving distortion of reality, painting herself as both victim and savior, while traumatizing her son through her deranged efforts and conducting psychological warfare against his father. She ultimately threatens and terrorizes TJ’s father by needlessly involving the police, escalating the situation without any semblance of just cause. It is this final point that is most worrisome, as the father is not a Japanese citizen and is at considerable risk of unwarranted investigatory and legal difficulties due to language barriers and the dire lack of equitable representation in international Japanese custody disputes.

      The mother’s calculated engagement of Japanese police must be considered an extralegal attempt to abolish an established custody agreement that was already heavily prejudiced against the father, who nevertheless remains the child’s only stable financial provider. Her actions documented here precede immediate cessation of all contact with the father, based solely on the evidence presented here. The matter takes on an even more sinister light when considering that the mother has exploited TJ as a hostage of sorts in order to extract child support from the father she is intentionally estranging from her son, all through court order of the State of California. To be sure, the mother is currently manipulating Japanese custody law as a Japanese citizen while simultaneously petitioning the state of California for monetary awards, hinging entirely on false claims.

     The evidence here shows this case escalating well beyond a mere custody dispute into the realm of abduction as defined by the Hague Abduction Convention, a treaty signed by both Japan and the United States. The heinous nature of the case is evidenced by the mother’s unwarranted involvement of Japanese police, manipulating authorities as a brutal bullying tactic, even as she maintains her false residency in California to collect domestic child support. The mother is violating the father’s custody rights on an international level, while simultaneously misrepresenting herself to the American court system to a degree that is arguably criminal.

     TJ is an American citizen, but he was born in Japan and his mother prevents him from setting foot on American soil so as to further estrange her son from his father. While the mother managed to establish residency in California in 2016, she fails all residency tests as established under state guidelines. She has no known intentions of ever returning to California, but remains a California citizen who can reap the benefits of child support under U.S. family law, even as she violates U.S. custody laws. It is almost certain she has failed to pay taxes on income taxable by the State of California, going as far back as 2016.

     These are all important facts to consider while following this investigation into the events of July 30th, 2022.

TJ’s Mother Sounds a False Alarm

(Note: The phone used as the imaging source was set to Eastern Daylight Time, as reflected in all timestamps, though the events unfolded in the Japan Standard Time zone, 13 hours earlier than each timestamp indicates. All EDT times referenced in text are notated with single quotes to indicate the time differential.)

This exchange marks the beginning of correspondence between the father (in green) and mother (in white) on July 30th, 2022. No text communication has been excised from the ensuing messages exchanged between the parents over the next 73 minutes, from the time the mother received the message at ‘11:03 PM’ to her message 73 minutes later at ‘12:16 AM.’ As these messages during this period reveal, there is a drastic change in tone at the transition point from A to B that is not attributable to any action on the father’s part.

Escalation of the False Alarm

Here the mother can be seen voicing rapidly escalating and likely performative concerns, implying that the father has failed to convey the child to Kumon class for some unknown nefarious purpose.

In block A, six minutes elapse before the mother begins using excessive punctuation (in this case, four question marks) to demonstrate panic. She has also already begun to involve outside parties.

In block B, the mother admits that she assumes the father’s phone is merely turned off but would like for him to contact him “if” he “can” – and yet immediately thereafter, before one minute has elapsed, she reveals that she has already escalated the situation to police involvement. The grand total of elapsed time, from the mother’s initial ‘concern’ to her at least claiming she has gone to the police, is a mere two hours and 34 minutes.

In reality there is no precedent for this panic, as the father has never taken any action not in favor of the child’s well-being. As documented in these pages, the father has taken his child to see “Lightyear” and was in a movie theater. Indeed, his cell phone is merely turned off, as is common courtesy while inside a theater.

Denial of Evidence

A: Upon exiting the theater and powering on his phone, the father immediately texts the mother to let her know why he had not been in contact and to assure her, “Everything is okay.” She ignores this and continues calling him.

B: Within one minute the father has supplied the mother with video evidence that their child is, in fact, perfectly fine.

Implied Threats

A: Despite the father’s verbal assurances and video evidence that all is well with TJ, the mother at this point escalates the situation with implicit threats – specifically that there are witnesses and authorities that have become “involved” in the matter. One wonders if the alleged witnesses are aware that the matter concerns a father who had taken his son to a G-rated Disney movie and turned off his cell phone for a grand total of three hours.

B: At this point the father attempts to explain that he can’t communicate via text messages while she continually calls him every one to two minutes, and again attempts to reassure the mother that he and the child will be at her home at 5:30 (indicating they will be arriving at her home in one hour and 26 minutes). In between these messages, the mother pleads for the father to call her “if it’s the last thing he does.” Given the subtext of these events, this is either genuinely histrionic with no cause, or a transparent attempt to manufacture emotional duress that simply does not exist. There is no evidence to suggest anything the father does will be the last thing he does.

Deliberate Manipulation or Wild Overreaction?

A: Given the undercurrent of manipulation in the mother’s tactics thus far, it is difficult to assess the truthfulness of her claim that police have arrived at her residence. The mother initially claimed she herself was at a police station but is now claiming that, one hour and 27 minutes later, the police have in fact been dispatched to the father’s house. Why? Based on what evidence? The child and father had been out of contact for just under three hours. There is no suggestion of foul play on this day or any day, or even that an accident had possibly occurred. What is the reasoning for going to the police in the first place, much less sending them to the father’s house – especially considering that the mother is fully aware at this point that neither the father nor the child are, in fact, at the father’s house? Once again, in what will become a motif throughout these pages, this is either the result of a wild overreaction or an open manipulation of events intended to falsely vilify the father.

More Implied Threats and Escalation

A: The mother continues to berate the father and demand that she ‘have’ the child, despite being told repeatedly that the father is en route to her house and will arrive there soon.

B: Fourteen minutes after stating she was still at the police station and needed to “tell the cops they can go home,” the mother is now claiming she is at the Terrace Mall and is physically searching for the child. This despite the fact that she has been repeatedly informed that the father is en route to her own home and has been provided video evidence of the child’s well being. She has absolutely no reason to believe that the child is still at the Terrace Mall. She also now begins utilizing overwrought emotional language, demanding to know, “Where is my son?” when she is fully aware of TJ’s whereabouts.

Disingenuous Meltdown

At this point the mother begins to use aggressive and threatening language that demonstrates the transparency of her intentions behind her disingenuous meltdown on this day.

At point A, she persists in asking for the child’s whereabouts when TJ’s location is fully known to her.

At point B, she claims she “does not want the cops to be involved,” a bizarre threat considering she has explicitly stated three times that the cops are already involved, going so far as to allege  that police had already been dispatched to the father’s residence.

At point C, the mother’s tactics become deliberately confusing, or perhaps she can no longer keep up with the litany of threats she has made against the father. Two minutes after claiming she “doesn’t want the cops to be involved,” she has switched back to implying they already are and that “we” need assurances that the child is safe. Once again, she had been supplied with valid proof of TJ’s safety multiple times. She then levies her most direct threat yet, that “they” are asking when the father’s return flight is. It would be quite stunning to deport a traveler for simply turning off a cell phone inside a movie theater. She then reverts to claiming that she does not want “to involve them.” Which is it? Are the police inquiring as to the father’s travel plans, or are they not involved at all yet?

Blatant Intimidation Tactics

A: The mother now demands that the child must be dropped off at the police station rather than her home, which was the established routine for weeks. And this demand is made despite the fact that she is already clearly aware that the father and child are presently en route to her residence. What purpose does it serve to drop the child off at a police station, beyond attempting a blatant intimidation tactic? No criminal act of any sort has been committed throughout these events, calling into grave question the involvement of police for any reason. It remains unclear if  they are actually involved, considering that six minutes prior she was vacillating on whether or not she wanted them to be involved at all.

B: For some reason, it is only at this point that the mother seems to acknowledge that the father and child are on a train heading toward her home, yet she repeats her claim that she is at the police station instead.

Distortion of Facts

A: The mother claims the father “did not say” he was going to her house, contradicting the fact that he has repeatedly stated that was indeed his destination in the text messages shown in this exchange.

B: The father goes on to remind the mother that this is the third week he has returned the child to her home between 5:30 and 6:30. It appears that the mother might be attempting to manufacture inconsistency on the part of the father, ignoring the fact that both sides of this text message exchange could be used as evidence of what actually transpired.

False Accusations

A: One of the prevailing ironies of this exchange emerges here, as the mother accuses the father of inconsistency and failing to uphold agreements despite all evidence to the contrary. It is the mother who has failed to remain at her home at the agreed upon time, willfully disrupting the regular practice of returning the child to his residence in a timely manner.

Dubious Claims

A: The father reiterates that taking the child to the mother’s home between 5:30 and 6:30 is an ongoing, accepted part of their routine. He offers two alternative locations to which he is willing to escort the child. His consistent attempts to accommodate the mother, despite her erratic behavior, are clear.

B: Here the mother claims that the father’s alternatives are not acceptable because she has determined no one is home at either of these locations. She then claims to have placed two calls and had two separate discussions all within, at maximum, one minute. This unsupportable claim only compounds the numerous discrepancies in her threats and demands leading up to this moment.

Pleas for Reasonable Behavior

The father restates that the mother has already been informed that he was proceeding directly to her home and that there is no reason for her presence at the police station, now or at any moment. It is repeated that they have an agreed upon location, her residence, at which to drop off the child, and nothing has deviated from that routine. While eschewing any adversarial action throughout this manufactured ordeal, the father has managed to pick up desserts for both the mother and the child.

Questionable Intentions

It is not until point A that the mother confesses it will take her a total of 45 minutes to return to her home, the location that she has been repeatedly informed was the father and child’s destination, where at this point they are now forced to wait on her arrival.

At point B the father calls out the hypocrisy in her behavior towards him, as she had known to return to her home long before this point. The father acts graciously here, as two hours and 18 minutes have elapsed since the mother was first informed that he and the child were heading for her residence. 52 minutes have elapsed since she acknowledged that they were already present outside her home.

Many questions emerge at this point of the exchange. What exactly was the mother doing up until this point? Any claims of ignorance of their location or the father’s intentions are clearly dubious, if not plainly dishonest. If she did not want to involve the police as claimed, then why did she remain at the station? Moreover, why was her car 15 minutes away from the station? What was the actual purpose of her alleged concerns, considering that she first raised concerns hours before the agreed upon drop-off time?

Insensitive and Inappropriate Parenting

The necessity of this analysis becomes apparent here, at point A. After an alternately bizarre, histrionic, and ultimately false series of accusations and implications that the father is somehow acting irresponsibly as a parent, the mother carelessly suggests that her son should be forced to urinate in public “in a bush.” This to her is preferable to asking a neighbor for a bathroom.

Fake Outrage

A: In a transparent attempt to maintain her false sense of outrage, the mother lectures the father for seeking access to a bathroom for the child at a neighbor’s residence. To recap, the child cannot use the bathroom in his home because the mother has arbitrarily refused to return there in spite of her awareness that the father and child would be waiting there. She callously declares that the child should be forced to “pee in a bush” and goes so far as to scold the father for being, “disruptive… once again.”

B: Another bizarre false implication. The mother suggests the father is not properly feeding the child, despite the fact that only 19 minutes earlier the father had referenced the chocolate cake for her and fruit for the child he was carrying.

C: She now resumes threatening the father with unwarranted police involvement. Despite her claim of “not wanting to involve them,” she has spent four hours at a police station, and reveals only now is she filing a police report. Her reasons are based on criminally falsified information–the father has communicated with her steadily since leaving the movie theater and has brought the child to a “safe place,” her home, in keeping with their existing agreement. She then either lies about when she first sent the police to look for the child, or if she had involved the police before she had once attempted to contact the father.

Laying False Blame

The father’s understanding of the interpersonal status quo between the mother and child at point A exceeds the scope of evidence on hand and thus will not be used to support any claims made here.

Nevertheless, at point B the mother resorts to dubious accusations that the father is at fault without offering any evidence of this alarming allegation. She clarifies that the father is at fault because the child “didn’t go to Kumon.” Is she genuinely suggesting that the child missing one extracurricular ‘achievement’ class warrants her belligerence and police involvement? Did she prompt police to investigate the father’s return plane ticket over a single Kumon class?

Dire Unwarranted Threats

A: Her accusations continue to escalate. Her sweeping declaration that “Everything is your fault,” vilifies the father in the broadest of terms, yet the mother cannot specify what.

B: It is here that the mother reveals, perhaps unintentionally, her genuine intentions. The first text block includes the most blatant series of threats yet. “They” know the father’s address and have his picture, but she does not identify this party. Is it the police that she “did not want to get involved?” What changed? Why is she determined to become more involved now? Why do “they” have his address and picture? On what grounds? Based on her criminally manufactured false evidence? How do “they” know that the father has “zero custody rights?” Is she aware of the Hague Abduction Convention and how dubious this claim is, regardless of her considerable false evidence? How is the father “walking on a very thin line?” What is the purpose of these obvious and vicious attempts at intimidation?

The subsequent text block is similarly intended as a chilling threat, but at this point the mother has become borderline incoherent. “My personal view on you you’ll see soon” is incomprehensible. More importantly, what “actions” does she plan to take? And in response to what?

Pleas for Mercy

After numerous disturbing threats and insinuations, the mother repeatedly telephones the father. Despite claims that he has been reported to the police on false charges and menaced without any cause, the father focuses simply on fostering a good relationship between the mother and the child.

Conversely, the mother has done nothing but cite baseless reasons for denouncing the father, and has never expressed any actual concern for the child, other than demanding that the child urinate in a public place.

Alarming Insinuations

A: The stitches in question are explained on the following page, but they are the reason the father insisted the child had a “big day” on scan #16. The mother again implies foul play on the father’s part when she accuses him of possessing, “no answer.” It should also be noted that she gives him less than 60 seconds to provide the answer.

Refusal to Accept Facts

The father’s points at the beginning of this scan again exceed the scope of evidence presented here. It is, however, important to note that at point A, the mother’s response to the father’s pleas for her to simply be nice to her son is to yet again insist that “it’s your fault,” adding that she has a “right to know.” Presumably she has a right to know where her child received stitches after falling and sustaining a minor injury. This charge comes mere seconds after she had been informed of the location at which the boy received treatment.

Exploiting the Japanese Legal System

Man holding young son

     It is perhaps no surprise that these events immediately presaged the mother absconding with the child and cutting off all parental contact with the father, exploiting the willful systemic failure of Japanese authorities to enforce the Hague Abduction Convention to which they are treaty partners. At the very least, this documentation sheds immediate light on why the mother dramatically overreacted by raising groundless concerns, sought to manufacture evidence to justify involvement of the Japanese police, and ultimately feigned overwrought desperation without demonstrable reason. It appears the mother is attempting to fabricate evidence that would justify her intentional alienation of the father and child, an effort compounded by the fact that she presently collects a considerable sum through child support via the California court system. If international child support law has been observed in this situation, then surely the Hague Abduction Convention applies as well; and based on the application of this convention, the mother’s actions meet all criteria of an international parental child abduction.