July 14^th, 2005

To whom it may concern:

My name is Josiemar Pana Hathaway-Bates, wife of John Hathaway-Bates.

On June 28^th, 2005 both parties (John Hathaway-Bates & Hollydee Gadow) were ordered to have an evaluation by Commissioner Dodds and she told both parents that all parties involved (parents, children, new wife (me), etc.) should be there for the evaluation. I could not attend the evaluation on the date specified as I was very sick. So on July 12^th, 2005 (40 days before the hearing) when I had recovered I called Karen Nakamatsu and asked her if I could meet with her and give her my input to the evaluation, she adamantly and rudely refused to meet me and told me she did not need to hear anything from me as she already made her decision which she was going to present at the court hearing on August 22, 2005

Also, after reading what Sarah Turner (my husband’s daughter) has written in her letter to the court dated June 1, 2005, (which my husband has told me was only shown to him after the evaluation hearing) I am dismayed and very upset by this blatantly hateful letter.  In all the time I have lived with my husband, (Sarah’s father) I have experienced nothing resembling Sarah’s hateful testimony. I have never met or talked to this woman in the more than four years I have lived with her father. I found her letter to be ridiculous as I have read the psychiatric reports about the abuse against Christina that she mentions and have read Christina’s own statements about what happened. Sarah stated that “her Father WAS, and IS, an abusive alcoholic”. Who he was many years ago I do not know, but when she mentioned that her father is today an abusive alcoholic - it is totally a lie!  I have lived with my husband since 2001 and I have never met nor talked to Sarah. What I think is happening to her is that she has been convinced by my husband’s ex-wife Hollydee Gadow to lie to this court. Just as she (Holly) told the police that she IS sure John is drunk again, when in fact she had not met or talked to my husband the night she told the police those lies (Police Report of April 6, 2005 - attached).

That Sarah can call her father “a racist” is utterly unbelievable. My husband’s friends include African Americans, Orthodox Jews, Hindus and just about every nationally and religion, many of whom come to our home and many of them have supported my husband by paying his rent when he was not able to earn an income when he was too sick to work.  My husband is not a racist!  And for Sarah to say so is absolutely heartless and disgusting!

Many times Holly has dropped of the boys and then come back an hour or so later screaming that John is drunk and she has to take the boys away.  I have talked to her many times and told her that she is wrong and that my husband is completely sober and she insults me by saying that I do as I am told so that John will support me.  She still refers to me as John’s “live in girlfriend” to his sons!

Paragraph 3 of Sarah’s letter is totally a lie; her statement about her father “I remember my father telling me and my sister that my mother’s new boyfriend was bad. He told us that he touched us in the wrong places”. Please refer to the psychiatric reports dated October 12, 1987 and November 28, 1988 and the letter from Christina’s pediatrician that I have attached.

Hollydee Gadow has some major problems: for example, I remember when she used to call and pretend to be nice to me on the phone, but after an incident when she tried to convince me that my husband is hiding money from me, (her exact words were “Joy sooner or later you will find out that John is hiding money from you as well”) she became abusive and aggressive towards me. When I explained to her that my husband was not and could not hide his income from me as I do the bank deposits and analyze the bank statements for our accountant she began screaming and swearing at me.

I can never remember Holly calling John to discuss what is good for the boys, she only ever called to ask for money and to threaten him that she would not allow him to see his sons if he did not pay her. She would never even try to talk about the boy’s education, which I think is very important as I value education very much and think it is very important. My family are all educated to college level, and I cannot understand a mother who does not want her children to gain a good education. She only calls my husband to demand money and never to talk about the boy’s future.

After that incident where she told me my husband was “hiding money from me” she would always include me in everything aimed at hurting my husband, or their sons, but at the same time she continuously states that she does not want me to get involved with the children. She calls me regularly to tell me I am not David’s mother and I have no right to advise him about anything. In November 2004 she sent my husband an email when she demanded a full background report about me and my family. I come from a decent family, where my parents have been married for 30 years and my siblings and I have been educated and put through college and I have not have an illegitimate child, nor was I homeless and destitute when I moved in with John, as she was when he took pity upon her as she and her son were sleeping on the floor in a filthy apartment in San Pedro.

When David was eight he asked me if what his Mom had told him was true, as she had told him that I was a “mail order bride” who had no education and was a “bad person” that he should not trust or listen to.  I explained to him that in fact I had completed a four year University course as a computer engineer and actually my brother had paid for my ticket to come to America. (He is an officer in the Merchant Marine). My family own lands in Southern Leyte and my Grandfather was the Governor of my province and I have never needed my husband to support me, which can be proved through the mayor’s office in Saint Bernard should anyone wish to check on my family background.  How could any mother do this to her own son!

Since I married John this woman (Hollydee Gadow) has continuously harassed me and my husband.  She always tries to get me involved with the problems she has with my husband. She would demand things of me as if I was her maid: such as, ensuring the boys are able to do their own things such as playing video games and having friends over in our place during the school week. She also talks to me as if I was her servant demanding that I should make sure that the kids clothing is clean when they go back to her, which I always do, but then she sends them back to us with bags full of dirty clothes.

Holly calls me constantly and when I answer the phone she launches into asking me questions and if she doesn’t like my honest answers she will start yelling at me and threatening to put me in court, in jail or call the police to report me for child abuse. January 5^th, 2005, I really took note of that date when I finally tired of her threatening me for a lot of times, around 7:35AM she called and I answered the phone; John and the boys were sat at the dining table having breakfast. She asked to talk to Matthew and I said “they are having breakfast”; then she immediately started yelling at me over the phone saying “you better stop being such a bitch before I put your ass in court”. I then ask her “put my ass in court for what? - telling you they are having breakfast?” Mathew then picked up the phone and because it was in the speaker when I put it on hold, I heard her (Holly) telling Matthew that she would kill me! “I am going to kill that woman” her exact words!  Many of my husband’s friends who have known this woman for twenty years have told me never to trust her or allow her near to me as she is a violent and crazy woman.

The following night she called (as per the court order, both parties may make a phone call between 8:30PM-9:00PM), but she then called around 9:50PM and I answered the phone, she then asked to talk to the boys and I said the boys were sleeping, and once again she starts yelling at me on the phone and told me “You are such a liar, don’t lie to me, nobody sleeps this early at night” then I said to her on the phone that I do not lie and they really are sleeping. Matthew heard what I said and knew that it was his mother and got up and I gave him the phone and he told his mother that they were so tired they really were already sleeping.

Then on May 17^th, 2005 she came to drop off a tape for David, she called and asked me to send David down to the front door, but I told her that David was in the shower. She said she would wait and to tell him to hurry up. So I told David his mother was outside waiting for him and he needed to finish his shower.  Then she called again and said she couldn’t wait; she kept calling and then she started yelling at me to come down to get the tape. I told her that I did not want to because she was acting crazy and I had no wish to face her as she had already threatened violence against me several times and I have been told by many people that she is a violent woman. But finally I gave in and I went down to get the tape for David, she didn’t give me the tape however, instead she held it in her hands and started talking to me and told me how I should make sure that kids are kept away from drugs and alcohol and I should make sure that they are in healthy environment. I said to her that what she was saying was ridiculous as no-one in my family, nor had John, ever used or was involved with drugs. I do not (as she has) have a history of having men knocking on my door in the middle of the night and then leaving yelling that I was crazy. Nor do I have a history of beating up children as she did to John’s daughter Christina Hathaway-Bates as I have learned from Christina herself.

John has not had any alcohol in the house since March 6, 2005 after she abducted the kids for a month and launched her campaign of lies against him that he was an alcoholic.  The woman has some major problems and I feel sorry for her children, who she uses to attack my husband any chance she gets.

As for the court, it is up to them who they want to believe, but as far as I am concerned it is the boy’s future and education that should be considered. John would never, and has never hurt his kids, nor has he ever abandoned them as Holly has, to take off to Hawaii leaving them to fend for themselves.  She has even told them not to tell John (or she will ground them) when she has abandoned them on many other occasions.

I think the Court should know that Matthew does not want to live with his Dad simply because his Dad is very strict and will not let him neglect his school work, or run the streets on school nights with his friends as his mother does.  Matthew does not do anything while in our home except complain that when he is at his mother’s house he can do whatever he wants. They are also supervised when it comes to their bedtime, which Matthew doesn’t want to obey. A few days before Matthew left, we talked about having them use our bedroom and we would sleep in their bedroom so that Matthew would really go to sleep instead of playing video games into the morning hours as he always wants to do. They refused and Matthew called his mother saying John was being “an asshole” and was drunk. John was not drunk! Matthew once told me that he was walking in the street from West Hollywood to his mother’s place (Saturn Street) on his own after being with friends after school at around 2AM in the morning.

I do not trust Holly - as many of my husband’s friends who have known Holly for almost twenty years have told me that she lies and that she is violent; one of his friends once told me “If Holly is talking, bet she is lying”.  She always harasses us, she calls on the phone to try to break my husband and I up, or to tell me I am bad, or to tell me I have no right to tell my stepsons anything.  She comes to our home and rings the bell and asks me to go down and talk with her, in fact there was one occasion where she called me and told me “why can’t you just come down and we can talk as I am outside waiting”.  I told her I did not want to risk it because she might get violent and she started yelling at me, so I did not go down to meet her.

My husband loves his sons and is a very good parent, and I think that Holly has some serious mental problems, and the fact that Karen Nakamatsu, the evaluator would not even talk to me worries me a lot about what will happen to the boys, when she makes her evidence to the Court.

Josiemar Pana Hathaway-Bates