Courtesy of Paul Staehle/Instagram
90 Day Fiance’s Paul Staehle Shares Custody Battle Update After Spending Christmas Apart From Sons
90 Day Fiancé star Paul Staehle revealed that he and estranged wife Karine Staehle chose not to celebrate Christmas amid their intense legal battle with his cousin, who currently has custody of their young sons, Pierre and Ethan.
Paul, 40, took to his Instagram Stories on Sunday, December 24, to share an update in the custody battle, which began in 2022. He reminisced about the Christmases he had growing up with his parents, explaining that his mom, Mary, had “immense Christmas spirit” and decorated the house with her kids’ help every year. However, he claimed that neither Mary nor Paul and Karine, 27, decorated their houses this year because they could not spend the holiday with Pierre, 4, and Ethan, 2.
“Entirely because of the situation of my cousin not allowing any biological family seeing Ethan or Pierre,” he continued.
Paul went on to claim that, despite the court allowing his mother to visit the children, his cousin has forbidden the family from seeing or having any contact with Ethan and Pierre.
“All this after my cousin testified she would never infringe on biological family having a relationship with them and many other lies Karine lawyer caught her in under oath on the stand. Karine did every single court ordered required task by CPS and my cousin banned her and my mom from all visitation and contact during Christmas,” Paul continued.
The father of two went on to claim that Pierre “absolutely hates living with [Paul’s] cousin” and has cried at the end of visitations because he did not want to leave with his cousin.
“We even have a video obtained by our private investigator of Pierre at my aunt house her grandchildren escaping my cousin car running inside my aunt house to hide from her. Unbuckling himself escaping her car to flee,” Paul alleged.
Paul explained that he hired a new lawyer for his mother to work with Paul’s and Karine’s lawyers in the fight for custody. He further claimed that the legal team believes there is enough evidence of his cousin violating court orders to help him and Karine win back custody.
“We have to wait until sheriff serves my cousin the lawsuit unfortunately that will also not be until after courts reopen [after the holiday]. We are extremely thankful to our legal team that because of my cousin violating court orders and restraining visitation is grounds to remove custody and allow my mother or Karine the ability to get custody finally. Judges do not like it when someone restricts visitation rights especially court ordered ones,” Paul concluded. “Hopefully she will be found in contempt and jailed when courts reopen.”
In addition to his statement, Paul shared an apparent photo of the original court order allowing his parents to have visitation rights, as well as screenshots explaining grandparents’ rights and modification of child custody.
Paul and Karine lost custody of Ethan and Pierre in June 2022 as a result of their frequent relationship issues, as Paul explained to Newsweek in September. Child Protective Services (CPS) gained custody of the kids, but Pierre was soon reported missing by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The boy was believed to be with Paul, despite the father not having custody. Pierre was “located and safe” and returned on July 3, 2022, the Louisville Metro Police Department confirmed to In Touch at the time.
After that incident, both Pierre and Ethan entered foster care, with Paul and Karine beginning a long battle for custody. Paul’s cousin then filed a motion to take custody of the boys. The former 90 Day Fiancé couple, who have been on and off since 2019, have continued to update fans on the situation.
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