New Twist in Case of Kids Sent to Juvie for Refusing Lunch with Dad

» Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

Three children who had been sent to a juvenile detention and shelter facility for refusing to have lunch with their estranged father were ordered released Friday.

They’ll go to summer camp instead after Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca lifted an earlier contempt of court ruling in the case. The two-week summer camp was the recommendation of the children’s father and guardian ad litem.

Gorcyca defended the contempt of court charge, which drew harsh international reaction, and said she had the best interests of the children in mind when she ordered them held at Oakland County Children’s Village, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“While this court’s remedy in this particular situation may seem drastic and offensive, so too, is the notion ... that the only way to maintain a stable and loving connection with the mother is to vilify and reject the father,” Gorcyca said.

More on This Story:

• Judge Sends Kids to Detention for Refusing Lunch with Dad

The judge said in earlier proceedings that Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni “brainwashed” her children to believe their father was violent, and has said the case “tied for my worst parental alienation case” ever. Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, 40, and Omer Tsimhoni, 45, divorced in 2011 and have since been engaged in a contentious legal battle over visitation.

The children’s mother “has done whatever you can to meddle, obstruct or ruin a loving relationship that once existed between the children and their father,” William Lansat, the children’s initial court-appointed guardian ad litem, said in court Frida. He said it would take more than two weeks in Children’s Village “to undo five years of damage,” The Detroit News reports.

In his testimony, Lansat described the “cult-like” behavior of the children, who he said often communicated wordlessly, tapping their feet “like Morse code” to exchange messages. Their mother often suggested efforts aimed reconciliation between the children and their father, but the children became hysterical when he came to pick them up.

“You have to give her credit,” Lansat told the court. “Whatever she did, she has been successful. She’s been on a campaign and she had damaged the children.”

The family had been warned Children’s Village might be an alternative to remaining in the custody of their mother as far back as 2011, when retired Judge John McDonald briefly supervised the case.

On June 24, Gorcyca followed through on the warnings. She said Friday that sending the children to detention was “not ideal,” but other avenues to resolve the situation had been exhausted.

The children were not on lockdown with youths with criminal histories and awaiting hearings for threatening behavior, but in the 44-bed Mandy’s Place section of Children’s Village for kids who have been abused and neglected.

There, they have been taking part in therapy sessions and “seem to be making progress” daily, Brittany Kalso of Oakland County Children’s Village told the court.

Both parents must attend “parental alienation” counseling under the judge’s order, and share in the costs of the summer camp. The children’s situation will be reviewed again on July 20.

Omer Tsimhoni, an internationally prominent traffic safety researcher and General Motors Engineer, now lives in Israel. Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni is a pediatric eye doctor with an office in Canton, a widely known glaucoma researcher and former assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Michigan.