After former Major League Baseball player David Segui desperately pleaded to have his two minor sons, Shai and Brock returned to him after they were ordered by an Arizona court to attend a controversial reunification camp, Segui was given joint custody of his sons.
For over a year, the former MLB star’s sons were forced into reunification therapy with Family Bridges after full custody was given to their mother in 2021.
Shai and Brock coming back home to their father after being placed in reunification therapy is something unheard of after a child is sent to reunification therapy.
David Segui v Donna Moniz
Segui and Moniz divorced in 2017 when their two sons were nine and eleven years old respectively.
However, custody of their children was left to be decided.
After a few years of legal disputes, an Arizona judge in late 2020 placed Shai and Brock in their mother’s care and awarded exclusive physical custody to Moniz while suspending Segui’s contact with his sons until further order of the Court.
The judge said the purpose of the order was to allow Moniz to enroll the children in Family Bridges, a program for troubled and “alienated” parent-child relationships known as reunification therapy.
The duration of the "no-contact" order was to be "no less than 90 consecutive days from the return of the family to Mother's home after the Family Bridges Workshop.
That order lasted approximately a year and a half, according to court documents.
Segui was ordered to pay 90 % of the fees which in the end totaled over $90,000, just for the reunification therapy.
Feeling he would never see his children again until they became adults and that the reunification therapy with Family Bridges was not working, Segui filed to remove Family Bridges and to reestablish his parenting time in May 2022.
“They tell you it’s a temporary thing but then it becomes permanent,” Segui said.
Later that fall, Segui was allowed supervised parenting sessions which the court found acted as a reintroduction of parenting time for Segui.
At a February 2023 hearing, the court found that it was in the children's best interest that Segui and Moniz be awarded joint legal custody.
Segui said he was successful where others have not been because of his willingness to call out the courts.
“I say the things in court that other parents are scared to say,” Segui said.
He said other parents, reasonably, give in to the threats of jail or losing their children.
“You fight, you do not comply or give in to their threats,” is Segui’s advice to others experiencing similar problems.
The Abuse of the Mother
The children have always had close relationships with their father and their siblings while the relationship with their mother has always been complicated, including a long period when they had no relationship at all.
The children do not have good relationships with their mother's significant other, another former MLB player, Mark Grudzielanek.
Grudzielanek has not seen his children in seven years and the state of California has ruled that neither he nor Moniz can have contact with Grudzielanek’s two sons.
Shai has expressed anger over several physical altercations wherein Shai or Brock were hit by his mom or her guests at home or school.
Shai felt intense shame in himself and rage against his mother when describing his memories of co-sleeping naked with his mother until about age 10, according to court documents.
He believes his maternal grandmother no longer loves him, which hurts because he spent a lot of time with her growing up.
Shai was ashamed of how he acted earlier in life; he described himself as able to get whatever he wanted whenever he wanted from his mom.
He feels very guilty that his mother treated him better than Brock. He believes he should have protected Brock from their mother.
Segui said that Moniz has seen Shai and Brock very little since the custody arrangement was reached in February. The last time the boys saw their mother was last summer.
“They each saw her for an hour on their birthdays and that was the last time,” Segui said. “She’s only seen them twice since they got out of school last summer.”
Moniz could not be reached for comment.
Segui said getting joint custody of his sons was bitter-sweet because he feels he should have been given full custody.
“It should have been put back to where it was before this order. I had full custody,” Segui said.
Nonetheless, Segui’s kids are happy since coming home with their dad.
“They’ve been great. This is where they’ve always wanted to be and have said this is where they want to live,” Segui said.
Reunification Therapy, Family Bridges and Randy Rand
Psychiatrist Richard Gardner coined the phrase “parental alienation syndrome” in 1985, characterizing it as a disorder in which children, programmed by the allegedly “loved” parent, grow resentful of the allegedly “hated” parent, and often of that parent’s extended family.
In 2013, the American Psychological Association listed parental alienation as a specific form of child abuse. Parental alienation syndrome is not listed as a medical term.
Nonetheless, parental alienation is often used as a counterargument to an allegation of abuse, which is what happened in Segui’s case.
Ally (Cable) Toyo also experienced reunification therapy with Rand when she was 16 years old.
Toyo, Youth Initiative Founder for the Center for Judicial Excellence, said she and her sister were “held captive” in a hotel and threatened into a relationship with their abusive father through Family Bridges.
Toyo said that Family Bridges leaders, Randy Rand, Kathleen Rock and Kelly Voyage threatened her and her sister with wilderness camps, psychiatric facilities or foster care.
Associates of Family Bridges and its founder Randy Rand provide reunification therapy around the country after being called in as court “experts.”
After being called as an expert witness, Family Bridges always claims that the children are being alienated from one parent and need its help, for which it charges tens of thousands of dollars.
Abusers often lodge “parental alienation” or “alienation” claims against a safe parent as a legal strategy to cast doubt on their credibility and valid claims of abuse are labeled as “alienation” by the abusive parent.
Family Bridges claims to be the world leader in helping children and teens reconnect with a parent from whom they are “alienated,” according to its website.
At a 2012 hearing against the Board of Psychology where Rand contended that the board lacked jurisdiction to discipline him, Rand discussed the origins of his program, how it worked and the goal of the process.
The hearing involved reunifying a non-custodial parent with a child who had become alienated from the non-custodial parent and “idolized” the custodial parent.
Rand testified that he developed the program “by trial and error” after he noticed similarities between alienated children and children who had been abducted and brainwashed by a cult.
He admitted that his program required that custody be given to the non-custodial parent, that the child be forced to participate in a retreat with the parent, and then go “home with the previously rejected parent” as a “permanent arrangement.”
Rand has refused repeated requests for comment.
The Family Bridges program and Aftercare Protocol lacks peer-reviewed studies and appears to fall victim to the criticisms of parental alienation syndrome in general. Those benefiting financially from the program publish their own “studies,” according to Dr. Ian C. Lamoureux, Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
“None of these ‘studies’ are subjected to meaningful peer review, nor do they meet scientific evidentiary standards. Furthermore, they are built upon a scientifically invalid foundation that PAS is an actual diagnostic entity and can be treated,” Lamoureux said in a report on Segui’s case in 2022.