Tonya Craft and her lawyers will be in Hamilton County Circuit Court June 7 to ask that a temporary visitation plan be put in place until they can argue for full custody of her two children.
The hearing marks the beginning of that custody battle in the wake of Ms. Craft's recent acquittal in a Georgia state court on 22 counts of child molestation, aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery.
Ms. Craft, 37, aggressively fought to prove her innocence in the charges, which surfaced in 2008 when she was a kindergarten teacher in Chickamauga, Ga.
Custody of the two children immediately went to their father, Joal Henke, in 2008. Because Ms. Craft's daughter was an alleged victim in the child molestation case, Ms. Craft has never been allowed visitation with her. She has been allowed, however, to have limited supervised visits with their son.
In a motion fled Tuesday, Ms. Craft claims "it has been harmful to the children that she has not had contact with her daughter and has only had limited contact with her son over the past two years."
They are asking Circuit Court Judge Marie Williams to lift all visitation restrictions concerning Ms. Craft's son and to expand visitation with both children to include holidays, birthdays and summer breaks.
They also are asking for daily phone contact with both children.
See tomorrow's Times Free Press for complete details.