Dwyane Wade’s Custody Battle Escalates Into Ex’s Arrest: What About the Kids?
June 20, 2012 Leave a comment
by Denene Milner
Just hours before he took to the basketball court in Game 4 of the NBA Finals between his Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Dwyane Wade was in a different court, battling to have custodial rights stripped from ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches-Wade, who was arrested this past weekend for refusing to hand over the couples’ sons to their dad for Father’s Day.
Through his attorney, James Pritkin, Wade appeared in court yesterday to present a filing in which the NBA star accused Funches-Wade of using their children as “the proverbial pawns” in their nasty, drawn-out divorce case. “This court must take action to protect our minor children from further exposure to the present environment S.L. creates while they are in her care and preventing S.L. from exercising her parenting time in a manner that is harmful to our children,” Wade wrote in the filing.
At issue: Wade says in the filing that when his sister went to Funches-Wade’s house on Saturday to pick up the boys and bring them to the airport for a Father’s Day visit with their dad, Funches-Wade left her standing outside, sans a response, for “several hours.” When a sheriff’s deputy was called to the scene and tried to take Funches-Wade into custody, Funches-Wade tried to leave the home without the kids, the filing adds.
Funches-Wade was charged with two counts of attempted child abduction, two counts of unlawful visitation interference and one count of resisting arrest in the weekend incident. Another woman, Nadgee Alarcon, was charged with one count of resisting arrest. Funches-Wade spent the weekend in jail; she was released Monday after posting $10,000. On Tuesday, her attorney, the law firm of Kalcheim Haber, LLC, asked the court for permission to stop representing her. She is scheduled to answer to the charges, all misdemeanors, in August.
Wade says he eventually sent a private jet to retrieve his children, who made it to Miami at about 6 a.m. on Sunday. “That’s what mattered most to me, getting them here to be with me on Father’s Day,” Wade told The Associated Press, adding that the incident had not affected his performance in the championship series.
A hearing on Wade’s bid to bar his ex-wife from seeing their boys was set for June 26, which would be the date of Game 7 if the Heat and Thunder extend the series to its limit.
I promise you, just pondering that scene—of two little boys watching their mother be carted away to jail—hurts my heart. I don’t know who is telling the truth, what were the exact circumstances that led to Siohvaughn Funches-Wade’s arrest, or whether she’s lashing out after losing custody of her boys to Dwyane Wade, but really, I wish the two of them could figure out how to get down to the basics of raising their kids, sans the court filings, sans the calls to the police, sans emergency extractions of the babies and distractions from the things that are important to young boys. Personally, as a mother, I could not imagine life without my children in it. I’m sure my husband feels the same way. Come what may, there must be a better way. For the sake of the children, surely, there must.
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- News Break: Dwyane Wade’s Ex-Wife Arrested After Attempted Child Abduction (crunktastical.net)
- Siohvaughn Funches-Wade, Wife of Miami Heat Star, Arrested on Child Abduction Charges (thehollywoodgossip.com)
- Baby Mama Drama: Miami Heat Baller Dwyane Wade’s Crazy Azz Ex-Wife Popped For Attempted Child Abduction (bossip.com)
- Dwyane Wade’s Ex-Wife Charged With Attempted Child Abduction, While Chris Bosh’s Ex Is Applying For Food Stamps [Dwyane Wade] (deadspin.com)
- Wade dealing with custody issue during Finals (local10.com)
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