Some say they may have mishandled the case of a family living in their vacation cottege
By KEITH MATHENYRecord-Eagle staff writer
ALBA - A Battle Creek family's ordeal with Antrim County's Family Independence Agency and local law enforcement officials has caused some of the Antrim officials involved to re-evaluate their actions in the case.
Antrim County Prosecutor Charles Koop said he has spoken with county FIA and Antrim sheriff's department officials over how the case might have been better handled, and how to react in similar circumstances in the future.
"We used a bazooka when maybe we should have used a fly-swatter," he said.
Mary Myers of Battle Creek went into hiding downstate for three weeks with five of her six children earlier this year. She feared they would be taken from her under an Antrim Probate Court order filed by FIA to pick up the children while Myers and her husband, Joseph, were investigated on neglect charges.
The charges involved the family staying in their Antrim County vacation cottage off Sand Hill Road for two months this winter while finishing work on it. Though virtually all work was completed on the cottage and it contained a $2,000 wood stove, electricity via a generator and running water, the local FIA's investigation stemmed from it not having received a final occupancy permit from the county building department, a Record-Eagle investigation showed.
Mary Myers was visited at the cottage on Feb. 16 by a county FIA worker and a state police trooper, while Joseph was not home. The officials, responding to a tip, inquired about the status of her "foster children." Myers sent the officials away and referred them to the national Home School Legal Defense Association, an agency with which the family is affiliated, for proof her children, ranging in age from 3 to 17, were not foster children but adopted.
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