What Kurtis Stoltz thought would be a temporary love affair turned into an unexpected pregnancy and a subsequent 18-month custody battle that landed him briefly in jail.
“I would strongly advocate against it and if you are going to do it, use extreme precaution,” he said. “In addition to an unexpected pregnancy, there's a lot that can go wrong.”
The data analyst credits attorney William Halaz III of the Cordell & Cordell law firm in St. Louis for turning supervised visits with his toddler daughter into unencumbered weekends then eventually to joint legal and physical custody at the conclusion of the case.
“His presence on my case relative to the other attorney was favorable,” Stoltz said. “I think that did help me. But what didn't help me in particular with my case is my attorney's posture towards the guardian ad litem.”
Robert Hamilton of Reinker Hamilton Fenley law firm was the guardian ad litem appointed to Stoltz’s case and Halaz, as previously reported in the St. Louis Record, is well-known locally as a men's divorce attorney.
“There was clearly a conflict of interest with how Halaz managed the situation with the guardian ad litem on the case,” Stoltz told the St. Louis Record. “Will Halaz spent more time trying to protect Robert Hamilton than he did asserting my civil rights and human rights as a father."
Although Stoltz’s custody case ended on a positive note on Sept. 12, he sees room for improvement among family court insiders including lawyers, psychologists, and Guardians Ad Litem.
“I have my little girl but there is a lot of financial damage that occurred in the process because the guardian ad litem intentionally dragged this out,” he said.
Stoltz, who lives in Clifton Heights, owes $30,000 but because of the interest, he estimates the true amount owed is closer to $40,000.
“I'm in significant personal loan debt and credit card debt and it costs me $1,000 a month just to make enough of a payment because of the interest,” he said. “The emotional distress that I have from what occurred is going to last me a lifetime because it’s made me not trust the family court system and furthered my distrust in government overall.”
When Stoltz posted about his experience on Facebook to warn others, he was surprised by his attorney's response.
“Will threatened to recuse himself if I didn't take down my social media posts that attempted to shed light onto Robert Hamilton's actions overall, including the idea that Robert Hamilton was using my daughter as a mechanism of extortion by dragging out the process and making the case more contentious,” he said.
In one of his posts, Stoltz stated, "While he enjoys the time with his daughters, this GAL has gone above and beyond to deprive a committed, loving father of the ability to see his own daughter for months. The reason? Absolutely none. All stemming from a case that was dismissed on grounds of self-defense when the father was protecting his baby daughter against aggression on his own front porch."
Neither Halaz nor Hamilton responded to requests for comment.