Home >  Local News >  Neighborhoods

Friday, June 27, 2003

By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Confusion over whether someone is needed to supervise the hand-over of a boy to his mother for court-ordered weekend visits prompted a Westmoreland County judge to end the visits altogether, just a week after authorizing them to be done without supervision.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge John J. Driscoll canceled a visit scheduled for this weekend between Amy and Lee Ulery and their 8-year-old son Jordan. The order says the visit will not occur because neither Ulery, nor her parents, Ronald and Dianne Waugaman of Greensburg, who have had custody of Jordan for nine months, would agree to exchange Jordan without a supervisor.

In a telephone interview Wednesday from her job in Montgomery County, Ulery denied ever demanding a supervisor. She said she was happy with an order Driscoll issued June 16 saying a supervisor was unnecessary for future visits because Jordan had willingly left his grandparents and climbed into his mother's car for the first visit a few days earlier.

That visit was the first time the boy's father had seen him in nine months. Amy Ulery had seen him for approximately half an hour on June 6 in a supervised visit in an office. Before that, the court had denied the Ulerys visits with their son except for one four-hour visit nine months ago.

A story about the custody dispute between the Ulerys and the Waugamans appeared in last Sunday's Post-Gazette.

The latest order from Driscoll comes during a postponement in a trial to determine Jordan's custody. Shortly after postponing the trial in April, Driscoll granted the Ulerys the every-other-weekend visits that started two weeks ago.

The order says that although that first visit "was successful," the next visit was canceled because both the Ulerys and the Waugamans were insisting on a monitor, and there was no money available to pay for the person to travel with the Waugamans to Exit 17 of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to turn the child over to the Ulerys.

Amy Ulery said she couldn't stop crying after receiving a copy of the order this week. "When he issued the order for visits, he said it was in the child's best interest to have contact with his parents. Why is it not in his best interest to have contact now?" she asked.

Driscoll said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the Ulerys will miss only one visit before the custody trial resumes on July 7. "I think it is best for all concerned, since the trial is just over a week away, that everyone abide by the outcome of that trial," he said.

He said judges hope that parties in custody battles can work out their differences for the child's best interest, but, he added, "In this case, only the court is going to be able to make that determination."