It didn’t take long for Aeron and me to fall back into our destructive routine. Naturally, not having had sufficient time apart, nothing changed after I moved out of the house. We were both still playing a game of cat and mouse, pretending we were leaving one another, saying we were done, but pulling each other back into the pit that had become so comfortable to us over the years. He picked up right where he left off, making promises he had no intention of keeping and disregarding my feelings, and I continued my efforts to somehow fix our relationship. Though our marriage was over and I had grown to be okay with that, I still hoped we could be cordial and loving toward one another and stop tearing our children apart. The two boys had grown close during their years together and continued to refer to one another as brothers. But Aeron just couldn’t help himself. He continued to be abusive and dismissive and I continued to accept it.
But things were changing all around us and inside of me.
Jonah’s mother had been on a campaign to regain custody of him since about a year after foolishly signing what she believed to be a temporary custody agreement. With the help of her parents, she opened a child-custody case in a Chicago court and began the fight to get Jonah back. By now, she was married and living in a home her father purchased for the newlyweds, Jonah, and her new husband’s children from a previous relationship. She wanted her family to be together and I couldn’t blame her. I understood how necessary it was to have a family and to have that family be complete.
Jonah’s mother and her parents stopped at nothing to bring him back home to Chicago. They delved into Aeron’s past and were having him surveilled as he went about his days in Los Angeles. They interviewed people who knew Aeron and had been around during the past few years as he reared Jonah, including me. During my conversations with Jonah’s family in Chicago, I found out things about Aeron I never knew, and for the first time in five years, I refused to protect him. I told them everything I’d seen—things that would horrify any mother.
Aeron was never the ideal father, though no one could ever tell him he wasn’t doing it properly. He was oddly obsessed with Michael Jackson and had it in his head that Jonah’s mother was just a carrier from whom he was justified in purchasing his child, the way he assumed Michael Jackson had done with his children. He carried his son with him everywhere he went, treating Jonah more like an accessory than a person. This poor baby was being dragged to early-morning and late-night meetings and was walking around dangerous television and film sets, sleeping in trailers and in green rooms. Though I always begged Aeron to leave Jonah at home with me so that Jonah could get proper nutrition, care, and rest, Aeron mostly refused. The times when he did feel it appropriate to leave the child with someone else, he would drop Jonah off at Mona’s for days or weeks at a time, or at his sister’s, brother’s, or various friends’ homes. All the while, Jonah craved stability and a sense of normalcy.
Just like I did.
Aeron didn’t really live anywhere when he wasn’t living with me. He didn’t have his own place and slept at this house and that, with family and friends. For a time, before they moved, Jonathan, his girlfriend, and their daughter all lived with Mona. When the couple had another daughter, the four-bedroom house became full. Still, Aeron and Jonah claimed to live there as well, as Aeron tried his best to appear stable to Jonah’s mother. However, the fact that Aeron and Jonah were forced to share a bedroom in the overly occupied home didn’t fare well with Jonah’s mother.
None of the information I shared with Jonah’s family, nor the information they found while investigating Aeron, made them comfortable, and after months of compiling proof against Aeron, they decided it was time to call Los Angeles’s child protection agency to see about the living conditions to which Aeron was subjecting Jonah. I wasn’t aware they’d done so until after the fact, when Jonah’s grandmother in Chicago told me. Although the move was something I understood, and a necessary one on their part, I knew all too well there would be consequences for going against Aeron.
Late one afternoon in April, two days after Jonah’s family called Child Protective Services, there was a thunderous knock on my door. Looking out the peephole, I saw three police officers positioned to pounce, their hands on their weapons. Behind them was a thin Hispanic man holding a clipboard. My first thought was that there was an emergency in the building. I thought that maybe there was a murderer or rapist on the loose and the authorities were here with a property manager to secure the premises. That had to be it; they couldn’t be there for me.
Except they were.
“Are you Karrine Steffans?” the man with the clipboard asked once I opened the door, my heart pounding nervously in my chest. The three police officers stood at the ready, their hands still on the butt of their pistols, as the man made his way through the wall of officers and to my front door.
“Yes. What’s going on?” I responded, growing more nervous and afraid by the second.
“My name is Roberto Fernandez and I am an agent with the Department of Children and Family Services for the county of Los Angeles. I am here, accompanied by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, because DCFS has received an anonymous tip. May we come in?”
“Sure,” I said as I moved to the side, allowing the four of them to enter the apartment. I tried my best to remain calm as my anxiety began to turn to anger. I knew exactly who had done this.
“Who else is in the home?” asked one of the officers.
“Just my son,” I promptly replied, pointing to his closed bedroom door.
“Do you mind if we take a look around?”
“No. Go ahead.”
As the officers took the very brief tour of my tiny apartment, Agent Fernandez began to explain the details of the anonymous tip he received. “The caller claimed you were running a brothel out of your home, subjecting your son to the presence of the men coming in and out of the home. The caller alleged you are abusing heroin, as well as physically and emotionally abusing your son, leaving him alone for weeks at a time and not feeding him for days.”
“I know who did this,” I responded, shaking my head and smirking just a bit. “Sir, I am on the tail end of a five-year abusive relationship with my ex-husband. This man has also been abusive to his child, and the mother of that child just called your department to report him two days ago. I’m sure he thinks I either did it or had some part in it and this is his way of getting back at me.” As I continued to talk, the officers excused themselves and exited the apartment after assessing there was no immediate danger to the agent.
“So, you’re saying all these allegations are false and were made as a form of retaliation from your ex-husband?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And there is an open case against him with the Department of Children and Family Services?”
“Yep. It was just opened the other day. I can give you all the information and show you a paper trail documenting the abuse I have endured over the past five years, including battery and injury reports, all the temporary restraining orders I have had against him, and the attempts I have made to make those temporary orders permanent, to no avail.”
“Why haven’t you been able to make them permanent?”
“Because I can never find him. He doesn’t live anywhere and moves around a lot. He’s never had a steady job until now, and it’s impossible to have him served at the CBS lot; no one can get past security. So I can never protect myself and he keeps coming back.”
“And you’re sure he’s the one making these allegations against you?”
“Either him or his mother, yes. But he’s the only person who knows where I live. I just moved into this apartment two months ago and he’s the only person who’s been here. Plus, he’s always tried to make me look like a bad mother. He’s always lied about me on every level, privately and publicly. He’s done nothing but try to destroy me and my son since the moment I let him into my life. I guess now he’s trying to finish me off for good.” I started crying, knowing I had opened myself up to Aeron’s hateful antics once again and I could be made to pay with my life and that of my innocent son.
Over the course of my conversation with the agent, I gathered all the evidence I had of the abuse I suffered at Aeron’s hand and gave him Aeron’s full name, as well Jonah’s and that of Jonah’s mother. I told him about all the years Aeron spent in court, trying to keep Jonah away from his mother and how she’d finally had enough. I told the agent about the surveillance and the damaging things Jonah’s family in Chicago had found out about Aeron. I even told him about Mona and how she’d accused me of abusing Jonah and even Naiim—that this was their go-to maneuver, their first line of attack when trying to ruin my life. I painted a complete picture of the situation for Agent Fernandez and, by the end of our first meeting, he knew I wasn’t the problem. He knew I wasn’t the bad one and for the first time, I felt I had someone who believed me and wanted to protect me from the monster I once married.
It may have taken extreme circumstances, but I was glad to have someone in my corner. I was willing to go through whatever process the state needed if it meant they were going to help me protect myself against Aeron. He thought making these false reports against me would hurt me but his plan was backfiring.
“The first thing I need you to do is file a restraining order against your ex-husband, again, and I will help you serve him,” Agent Fernandez instructed. “You have to do this as a measure of keeping you and your son safe and free from abuse. If the department feels you are not doing enough to keep your son safe from Aeron, that is considered abuse, as well. So, I’ll help you do that.”
He folded a sheet of paper in half and scribbled down a list of three other recommendations:
1. Domestic violence group counseling and/or education to help mother recognize her behaviors which place her at risk of witnessing abuse.
2. Individual therapy to address ongoing anxiety.
3. Conjoint therapy for mother and son.
Though Agent Fernandez believed my stories of emotional and physical abuse, there was nothing he could do to close the case Aeron opened against me. Once a case is opened in Los Angeles County, it cannot be closed until certain steps are taken and the state finds the case satisfactorily addressed.
Immediately, I filed a restraining order against Aeron—the third in five years—but this time, I had help getting it served. Agent Fernandez and the Los Angeles Police Department used social media to find out where Aeron would be and sat outside a local venue where he and his brother were scheduled to perform. I stayed by the phone that night as Agent Fernandez called me frequently with updates from his car outside the venue. Finally, as I dozed off on the sofa, I received one final call.
“He’s been served,” Agent Fernandez reported.
“Oh my God! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I exclaimed, delighted to know I’d finally been able to take the step needed to protect myself against Aeron. Aeron’s restraining order against me, which he’d filed back in 2008, was still valid, but neither of us had been adhering to it. Even when I asked Aeron to stay away, he wouldn’t, even though he was the one who filed the order. I was tired of this sick cycle and after he made such disgusting claims against me with the Department of Children and Family Services, I was ready to protect myself.
This was the ultimate first step.
Over the next several weeks, Agent Fernandez scheduled various appointments for my son and me. Naiim and I entered counseling, alone and together, and Naiim underwent a series of medical and dental exams. I was evaluated by a team of psychiatrists and underwent the drug testing necessitated by the claims made against me. Naturally, all of our physical, mental, and emotional evaluations came back without any hiccups and my drug evaluation showed I had not consumed any drugs of any kind. Aeron’s attempts to, once again, make me seem like a bad mother and person had failed. In many ways, I felt vindicated to be able to prove, for once, that everything he’d been saying about me was false. And after seeing how abusive Aeron had been to my son and me, including his most recent false claims, the Department of Children and Family Services took an even closer look at the case Jonah’s mother had filed against him.
Aeron was in jeopardy of losing custody of Jonah and my restraining order against him had the potential to be the nail in the proverbial coffin. Even though I hadn’t fought his petition for a restraining order against me years before, Aeron was hell-bent against letting me protect myself against him in a court of law. He enlisted one of his mother’s best friends, an attorney he used to do most of his dirty work. What I hadn’t foreseen, when filing the restraining order at the request of Agent Fernandez, was the legal fight Aeron would demand and the thousands of dollars it would cost me—money I didn’t have. Even in my attempts to finally be free from Aeron, I stood to lose what little I had left.
Whether I wanted to go to court or not, I had to. The Department of Children and Family Services demanded I seek protection against Aeron with no concern as to the mental stress, anguish, anxiety, and financial burden it would cost. So, on May 5, 2011, I engaged an attorney and prepared to fight for my life. While the DCFS case against me dwindled, I appeared in a Los Angeles County court every two weeks as Aeron made sure my attempt to protect my son and myself against him dragged on. On every hearing date, I made my way to the courthouse, over an hour away from my apartment, sometimes accompanied by my attorney, sometimes not. I never even saw the inside of the courtroom as the attorneys met with the judge in his chambers, admitting evidence, only to have the case continued. And Aeron always came to the courthouse with a group of intimidators, including his mother. There were always at least four of them against me as I sat alone outside the courtroom, my stomach swirling and my heart racing.
There always seemed to be a reason for a continuance. Aeron always found a way to spin the truth in his favor and make me look like the psychopath, even though I was the one with the nearly endless paper trail of all he’d put me through.
I was under an exorbitant amount of stress and it was mostly evident in my massive weight loss. Nothing in my closet fit me anymore. Even my panties were too loose and I had to pin them to make them fit. I was sick and unable to bear the sight or smell of food. Every morning that I had to take the long drive to the courthouse, I vomited. The stress was just too much for me. All I wanted was to be free and to know that Aeron could be forced to stay away from me. All he wanted was to have full access to me and to keep Jonah’s mother from having another piece of evidence that would help her regain custody of her son.
We were in court the entire month of May and into June, and the fact that I had to fight so hard and long to be protected against a man who had been physically abusing me for the past five years, when that abuse had been documented in police and injury reports, baffled me. I wondered what this process must be like for women with no resources and no documentation. I wondered about those women who, like me, had no family to support them and no one to protect them from monsters like Aeron. It made sense to me, all of a sudden, how so many women wind up dead at the hands of their abusers and why so many abusers meet the same fate at the hands of their victims. Aeron, his family, friends, and his attorney painted me as the aggressor and he as the victim, and the court seemed incapable of seeing Aeron’s lies for what they were.
I was being blamed for being abused.
As mid-June approached, the Department of Children and Family Services closed their case against me and I was relieved to be finished with them. Around the same time, Aeron’s case with DCFS was also closed and Agent Fernandez exited my life. One weight had been lifted from me but still a huge load remained. I was due back in court in about a week to continue my fight against Aeron and I was dreading it. It was difficult to know whether to keep going or cut my losses at that point. I’d invested over $10,000 and countless hours building my case with my attorney. The biggest part of me wanted to give up but it was overpowered by my need to win the order of protection. As horrible as I felt, as sick as the process was making me, I didn’t know how to walk away—I didn’t know if I should. As much as I wanted to quit, I was looking to be justified. I wanted to be protected! So, I geared up for another week of stress and anxiety as I prepared my documents for court.