Rapist Gets Joint Custody Of Child Fathered In Attack: New Developments

BROWN CITY, MI — A Michigan man accused of raping a 12-year-old nine years ago has been awarded joint custody of the child he fathered in the attack, according to media reports. The victim’s attorney is fighting the decision by Sanilac County Circuit Judge Gregory S. Ross under the federal Rape Survivor Custody Act. The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Michigan and perhaps the nation.

In a new development Tuesday, Ross stayed the controversial order in the case against Christopher Mirasolo, 27, of Brown City, after widespread outrage, The Detroit News reported. A hearing will be held Tuesday, Oct. 17.

The case has been poorly handled from the beginning, Rebecca Kiessling, the attorney for the now 21-year-old woman has said. Mirasolo was arrested about a month after the incident when the girl found out she was pregnant, but he took a plea deal for a lesser charge: third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Watch: Rapist Gets Joint Custody Of Child Fathered In Attack: Michigan Judge

A rape conviction would have put Mirasolo behind bars for anywhere from 25 years to life. Instead, Mirasolo served only six-and-a-half months in the county jail. The girl and her family were told the plea deal was offered and that first-time sex offenders don’t get prison time “because people come out worse after they go there,” Kiessling told The Detroit News.

After Mirasolo was released from jail, he raped again and served four years in prison, according to “The Steve Gruber Show,” a Lansing-area radio program that initially reported the judge’s decision. (For more Michigan news, sign up for real-time news alerts and free morning newsletters from your local Michigan Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

“This is insane,” Kiessling told The Detroit News of the decision to give Mirasola joint custody of the child fathered in the alleged assault. “Nothing has been right about this since it was originally investigated. He was never properly charged and should still be sitting behind bars somewhere, but the system is victimizing my client, who was a child herself when this all happened.”

The woman raped by Mirasolo in the second incident told The Detroit News Monday that she was “disgusted” when she read the newspaper account of the judge's order, and said there is “no way he should have custody.”

“And I don’t think he should even be allowed around any children without supervision,” the woman said.

The judge granted Mirasolo joint legal custody and visitation after a DNA test established he had fathered the child. The DNA test was ordered after county officials in Florida, where the woman now lives with her eight-year-old son, surveyed family assistance recipients about what kind of child support they receive. The woman told The Detroit News she has been receiving about $260 a month in food stamps, as well as health insurance for her son.

Mirasolo initiated no actions to establish parentage, his attorney told The Detroit News, and it’s unclear if he will have any involvement with the child, the attorney said.

The judge ordered the woman and her son to return to Michigan so Mirasolo can develop a relationship with the boy. According to the order, she is “not allowed to move 100 miles from where she had been living when the case was filed, without court consent,” Kiessling told the Detroit newspaper.

Additionally, the prosecutor and judge shared the woman’s address in Florida with Mirasolo “without the knowledge or consent of the victim,” Kiessling said in a statement to Gruber’s radio program. The judge also ordered that Mirasolo’s name be placed on the child’s birth certificate.

As a 12-year-old in September 2008, the girl snuck out at night with her 13-year-old sister and a friend to meet a boy. His older friend, then 18-year-old Mirasolo, showed up and asked if they wanted to take a ride, Kiessling told The Detroit News.

“They thought they were going to McDonald’s or somewhere,” said the attorney, a victim of child rape who took the case pro bono. “Instead, he tossed their cellphones away, drove to Detroit, where he stole gas from a station, and then dove back to Sanilac County, where he kept them captive for two days in a vacant house near a relative, finally releasing the older sister in a park. He threatened to kill them if they told anyone what happened.”

When she discovered she was pregnant, her family suggested she have an abortion or put the child up for adoption.

“To her credit, she said she didn’t want the baby to be a victim, too,” Kiessling told The Detroit News. “She dropped out of school, went to live with relatives out of state and worked jobs to try and support herself.”

Michigan Right to Life, which opposes the order, is also assisting with the case.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” attorney William Wagner of the Great Lakes Justice Center told Gruber’s radio program. “This is absolutely ridiculous and that’s why the victim sought help from Michigan Right to Life.”

Most states, including Michigan, have laws that void rapists’ parental rights. Five states — Wyoming, North Dakota, Minnesota, Alabama and Maryland — have no laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Both the federal Justice for Victim of Trafficking and the Rape Survivor Child Custody acts have provisions that allow mothers of children conceived through rape to seek termination of their rapists’ parental rights.

Photo credit: Michigan Department of Corrections