Dad Seeks Custody of Kids Sent to Detention for Refusing Lunch with Him

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The father of three estranged children who were sent to a juvenile detention center after refusing to have lunch with him is suing his former wife for full custody, according to court documents.

Omer Tsimhoni, an internationally prominent traffic safety researcher and General Motors engineer now living in Israel, filed the motion for “sole legal and sole physical custody” of the children on Thursday in Oakland County Circuit Court.

According to the petition, Tsimhoni travels between the United States and Israel – where the family had lived before the children’s mother took the children to the United States and filed for divorce in 2009 – to visit his children, ages 14, 10 and 9, They live in Bloomfield HIlls with their mother, Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, a pediatric eye doctor and widely known glaucoma researcher who maintains a practice in Canton.

Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca ordered the children held on a civil contempt charge for defying her order that they have lunch with their father and begin rebuilding a relationship that had been been damaged in the long-running dispute between their parents. The children had been “brainwashed” by their mother, the judge said.

More on This Story:

• Judge Sends Kids to Detention for Refusing Lunch with Dad
• New Twist in Case of Kids Sent to Juvie for Refusing Lunch with Dad

Last week, after the acrimonious child visitation case drew international attention, Gorcyca lifted the contempt of court ruling and ordered the children instead to a two-week summer camp. At the time, she said that though detaining the children ”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.”

In the court filing, Tsimhoni claimed his ex-wife has been “a constant roadblock,” that she failed to follow the recommendations of mental health professionals who found “very clear dynamics of parental alienation” and never allowed him to visit his children unsupervised.

Both parents were allowed supervised visits with their children during their time in court, according to Gorcyca’s ruling.

A hearing on Tsimhoni’s motion for custody is scheduled for July 22.