Judge seals Craft visitation decision

The former schoolteacher who still is being courted by national media outlets to talk about her acquittal on child molestation charges emerged teary-eyed from a local judge’s chambers Monday after tense negotiations to be reunited with her children.

No member of the public saw the hearing that was supposed to have taken place in open court after Tonya Craft and her ex-husband Joal Henke apparently agreed that decisions directly affecting their son and daughter needed to remain private.

Hamilton County Circuit Court Judge Marie L. Williams took the same approach, telling Ms. Craft’s supporters, who had waited for more than two hours, that the decision with regard to a visitation plan would be rendered behind closed doors.

“I appreciate that concession in the best interest of the children,” Judge Williams told both parties. “These children do not need to have the details of their day-to-day life public.”

Ms. Craft’s legal struggles have been very public for months, and her acquittal May 11 on 22 counts of child molestation charges in which she was accused of abusing her own daughter and others only has added to the national interest in the case.

Quick to speak with journalists in the wake of her acquittal on the criminal charges in Catoosa County Superior Court in Georgia, Ms. Craft remained silent after her first court hearing Monday in her quest to regain custody of her son and daughter.

Mr. Henke also left quickly after the hearing and did not answer questions.

Ms. Craft’s mother, Betty Faires, would say only that she thought the visitation agreement reached Monday was a “step forward” for her daughter and grandchildren.

Ms. Craft appeared later Monday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” in what the network had begun publicizing a few days before as an “exclusive” sit-down with the former Chickamauga Elementary School teacher after the first leg of her custody battle.

When asked if she will someday gain custody of her children, Ms. Craft told Mr. King that she’s “going to fight until I do.” She declined to answer questions about the actual visitation arrangements hammered out in court Monday, as Judge Williams has ordered that those details be kept under seal.

A July 22 hearing has been set in which Ms. Craft and Mr. Henke will argue over a permanent custody arrangement. Although Mr. Henke has had custody of their two children since the criminal charges surfaced in 2008, Ms. Craft is fighting to have the children live with her on a full-time basis. She argues the forced separation has been damaging to them and to her role as a mother.

She has not been able to see her daughter for more than two years and her son only sporadically since first being charged. Ms. Craft now is suing all her accusers, including ex-husband Mr. Henke, in federal court for $25 million and continues to respond to national media outlets eager to publicize her story.