Disclaimer: This reports depicts acts of child sexual abuse which may be disturbing to some readers.
Tawny Grossman fled to Canada from Orange County in January with her two young children out of fear for their safety from her ex-husband Frank Grossman.
In doing so, the Orange County District Attorney’s office has issued a warrant for her arrest on felony charges of deprivation of custody of a child or right to visitation, according to records.
However, the crime Tawny has been charged with does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who takes, withholds or conceals that child with reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, according to California law.
Though the law states that the person withholding the child shall contact the local district attorney’s office, Tawny claims she was being harassed by that same office and felt she had nowhere to go.
After living in safe housing for several weeks, Tawny was taken into custody by Canadian authorities last week.
“I’m being held here …I came here to protect my kids because my daughter is being molested and both are being abused,” Tawny said from a detention facility in Surrey, British Columbia.
Tawny believes her children are now back with their father.
Frank Grossman asserted that Tawny's claims were never substantiated and were proven to be untrue.
“To claim otherwise is to defy logic, reason and state law,” Grossman said.
The OCDA’s office declined to provide any comment for clarification in this report.
Tawny filed for divorce from her husband due to his alleged pattern and history of domestic violence in 2021 and obtained sole custody of their two children.
But last December an Orange County judge awarded Frank full custody.
After that, Tawny filed for an appeal on that ruling that switched custody to Frank.
Though the appeals court granted Tawny and Frank 50/50 custody on Jan. 4, 2024 the trial judge ignored the appeal and within days made another ruling, reversing custody back to Frank.
This happened despite the history of abuse brought before the court by Tawny and mandated reporters.
These rulings appear to be influenced by an evaluation by Dr. David J. Sheffner, the court appointed 730 evaluator, conducted on April 11, 2023.
His evaluation found that Tawny over-identified as a victim and was paranoid about the abuse it appears her children had suffered.
Yet a peer review of Dr. Sheffner’s findings by Dr. Catherine Barrett concluded that Dr. Sheffner does not demonstrate the competence necessary to be commenting on risk factors of sex offenders.
Barrett found Sheffner’s assessments were not sophisticated enough to assess for domestic violence as psychological instruments are not designed to assess for emotional violence.
“He clearly believed that there was a lack of intimate partner violence as he put Ms. Grossman in the same room as her alleged abuser to assess their dynamic. The oversimplified and trash can conclusion of parental alienation is often used when something cannot be explained,” Barrett wrote.
Dr. Barrett continues that Sheffner undermines any possibility of coercive control as evidenced by labeling the relationship as "high conflict” and his confirmation bias is evident … when he highlights Frank's demeanor as “appropriate and reasonable."
“Shortly after he states this, he concludes that there has been no obstruction of evidence on Frank's part. However, the entire report is laced with obstruction, through diffusion of responsibility and Mr. Grossman equating unfounded evidence as false reporting by Ms. Grossman,” Barrett wrote.
Jeri Bailey, Frank Grossman’s visitation monitor, shared her observations of and experience with Frank in March of 2023 with Sarah Escalante, an Orange County licensed clinical social worker.
Bailey told Escalante that Frank shows narcissistic personality traits, according to court documents.
“He knows everything about everything about everything, there is not one thing he doesn't know, not one thing he's not an expert in,” Bailey told Escalante. "He talks to his children unlike a father. He says things like ‘bro, dude, get your own wallet, buy your own food.’
Escalante has interviewed Tawny’s daughter several times from Oct. 2022 through March 2023, court documents show.
When Escalante interviewed Tawny’s young daughter, she told Escalante that her father makes her feel sad and mad,
Tawny’s daughter disclosed that she does not like her dad.
When questioned why, the daughter shared that she does not like her dad because he ‘doesn't listen to her’ and that she ‘likes her mommy because her mommy does what she asks’
Tawny’s daughter told Escalante that "daddy touches my private parts without asking me and he keeps touching them and touching them and he touches both sides."
When prompted, Tawny’s daughter showed how her father touches her private parts using a doll; she demonstrated this by placing her finger on the doll between the doll's legs, court records revealed.
She then told Escalante that she tells her dad “I don't like it and I say stop but he doesn't stop."
Eric Irwin also submitted a written statement describing an interaction he witnessed in June 2021 between Tawny and Frank during an exchange of their children.
“In my personal opinion, Frank clearly does not abide by boundaries, mutually agreed meeting times, nor does he act in a responsible or appropriate manner in front of the children. He is clearly verbally and psychologically abusive to Tawny and continuously acts in a threatening, hostile, aggressive and inappropriate manner towards Tawny in front of the children,” Irwin wrote in March 2023. “He neglects the safety and needs of his children and does not put his children's health as a top priority.”
Tawny is currently being held in a Canadian detention facility and faces being transferred to the border and possibly extradited to Orange County.“I just want to be able to go home, get a job and do what I’m supposed to do, which is support my kids and protect them … by (OCDA) criminalizing me based off of false information, it could destroy my career as a nurse practitioner and the ability to care for my kids,” Tawny said.
Tawny’s is tentatively scheduled for court Tuesday.
This is part of an ongoing investigation into Orange County family court. Any victims of OC family court or whistleblowers are encouraged to contact Robert J. Hansen at rjh.investigative.reports@gmail.com