JoltVibe

After years of a contentious, drawn out custody battle, Kelly Rutherford has lost custody of her two children, Hermes, nine, and Helena, six. In a ruling which was widely expected, a court in Monaco has awarded full custody to her ex, German born Daniel Giersch. Hermes and Helena have lived with their father and their paternal grandparents in Monaco since 2012. Rutherford can visit her children, but only by traveling to France and only for half of their school breaks. Up until this summer, they were allowed to visit their mother in America, in New York city where she lives, for several weeks. However Kelly refused to send the children back as scheduled, essentially committing parental abduction, and was ordered by a NY court to return them to Monaco immediately. This came after years of Kelly trash-talking Daniel to the press, claiming that rulings by a foreign court didn’t apply to her, and threatening to keep the children against court orders. Throughout it all, Giersch and his legal team remained very tight lipped, only issuing occasional statements and continuing to promote Kelly’s time with the children.

So it’s in no way surprising that Monaco has stripped Kelly of custody as even outlets that were biased in her favor predicted this outcome. Here’s more, thanks to The Daily Mail:

Kelly Rutherford has lost custody of her two children with a Monaco judge making a final decision on the lengthy legal case that has seen her locked in litigation with her ex-husband for more than six years.

In devastating court documents seen by Daily Mail Online the actress’s worst fears have been realized as the Monaco judge has granted full custody to her German ex-husband, Daniel Giersch, 41, who will continue to live with the children in Monaco.

The court order stipulates that the parents must make decisions concerning nine-year-old Hermes’s and six-year-old Helena’s ‘health, schooling, religious education and any change of residence,’ jointly. But the children will live with their father with Kelly, 47, only permitted to ‘exercise her visiting and accommodation rights exclusively in France and Monaco.’

They will spend half of Christmas, spring and summer vacations with their father and half with their mother, with their father receiving the lion’s share of contact as the children will not only live with him but spend all of All Saints and the winter with him.

The former Gossip Girl actress will receive a total of 3000 euros ($3,281) a month in maintenance.

It is the latest, and final, blow for the actress who has fought to regain custody of her children since losing them in a 2012 judgment that she described at the time as ‘shocking, illegal and abusive.’

‘It was,’ she said, ‘the most cruel act against a child I have ever witnessed in my entire life.’

Kelly and her ex-husband have been embroiled in a vicious battle since before their divorce was finalized in 2009 when she was pregnant with Helena. The couple had married just three years earlier shortly before the birth of their son, Hermes.

The process has been so taxing on her finances that she was forced to file for bankruptcy in May 2013 after years of litigation fees reportedly totaling around $1.4million…

Now Kelly’s behavior has been heavily criticized with the Monaco court finding that ‘the mother has consistently retained the children’s passports that made it difficult for him [the father] since he could not come and go in their company, [Giersch has ongoing visa issues] nor similarly prove their identity, and she also objected to the issuing of German passports.’

[From The Daily Mail]

The Daily Mail has more from the ruling, including the fact that Rutherford never vaccinated the kids and that Giersch was seeking to have them immunized. Rutherford won a small victory in this case. Giersch wanted her to put aside any money she received for “exposure of her children in the media” into an account in their names. I assume that the request was denied because that’s difficult to quantify, and Kelly’s whole career the past few years has revolved around publicizing this case.

Rutherford is still getting a whopping €3,000 a month maintenance despite the fact that she lost custody. She’s making 36,000 Euro a year so she can afford to travel to see her kids. Given how outspoken she was, and how much smack she was talking the past few months, I get the impression that this is the outcome she wanted. I don’t think Kelly wanted custody of her kids, she wanted the press to make her into a martyr. It worked in many cases. Can you imagine how this would have gone if a father behaved the way she has the past few years?

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmbW5haoJ3e8qeo6Wxj6fCtbTEq52oqpSorKbEvp2Yp6GVoayotcSrqpygj5bEor7DnpuYm6WowbCw2JiiopyjlMC1rdiYoKeXnaS7oq%2FOaA%3D%3D