Just hours before he took to the basketball court in Game 4 of the NBA Finals between his Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Dwyane Wade was in a different court, battling to have custodial rights stripped from ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches-Wade, who was arrested this past weekend for refusing to hand over the couples’ sons to their dad for Father’s Day.
Through his attorney, James Pritkin, Wade appeared in court yesterday to present a filing in which the NBA star accused Funches-Wade of using their children as “the proverbial pawns” in their nasty, drawn-out divorce case. “This court must take action to protect our minor children from further exposure to the present environment S.L. creates while they are in her care and preventing S.L. from exercising her parenting time in a manner that is harmful to our children,” Wade wrote in the filing.
At issue: Wade says in the filing that when his sister went to Funches-Wade’s house on Saturday to pick up the boys and bring them to the airport for a Father’s Day visit with their dad, Funches-Wade left her standing outside, sans a response, for “several hours.” When a sheriff’s deputy was called to the scene and tried to take Funches-Wade into custody, Funches-Wade tried to leave the home without the kids, the filing adds.
Funches-Wade was charged with two counts of attempted child abduction, two counts of unlawful visitation interference and one count of resisting arrest in the weekend incident. Another woman, Nadgee Alarcon, was charged with one count of resisting arrest. Funches-Wade spent the weekend in jail; she was released Monday after posting $10,000. On Tuesday, her attorney, the law firm of Kalcheim Haber, LLC, asked the court for permission to stop representing her. She is scheduled to answer to the charges, all misdemeanors, in August.
Wade says he eventually sent a private jet to retrieve his children, who made it to Miami at about 6 a.m. on Sunday. “That’s what mattered most to me, getting them here to be with me on Father’s Day,” Wade told The Associated Press, adding that the incident had not affected his performance in the championship series.
A hearing on Wade’s bid to bar his ex-wife from seeing their boys was set for June 26, which would be the date of Game 7 if the Heat and Thunder extend the series to its limit.
I promise you, just pondering that scene—of two little boys watching their mother be carted away to jail—hurts my heart. I don’t know who is telling the truth, what were the exact circumstances that led to Siohvaughn Funches-Wade’s arrest, or whether she’s lashing out after losing custody of her boys to Dwyane Wade, but really, I wish the two of them could figure out how to get down to the basics of raising their kids, sans the court filings, sans the calls to the police, sans emergency extractions of the babies and distractions from the things that are important to young boys. Personally, as a mother, I could not imagine life without my children in it. I’m sure my husband feels the same way. Come what may, there must be a better way. For the sake of the children, surely, there must.
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Denene Millner
Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.
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That’s just awful. I don’t know the circumstances of their divorce or the child custody ruling, but for any mom who wants to rear her children, this has to be devastating. My prayers are for the little boys who are caught in the middle of this saga. It seems unfortunate that the parents can’t arrange to shorten the distance between each other for the sake of the kids. Jetting off in planes between parents on a regular basis…. I can’t imagine. Whatever commonality brought them together to create those little guys, should be considered when trying to work amicably towards custodial responsibilities and privileges for the sake of their children.
It is a shame that Mrs.Wade is acting selfish she is hurt by the actions her husband treated her
I fee like people think the father is in the wrong when the mother gets arrested. Sometimes Mommy is the one who is doing the harmful behavior. Sometimes the children are better off with Daddy and if what Dwayne is saying is true, then I hope she loses custody until she gets herself together and stops lashing out at Dwayne. If he’s not being hones about what’s really going on, then he should be arrested and possibly have his rights taken away.
Look at her face. I recognize it. A woman who is hurting. He should be a shame of himself. Treating the mother of his children this way! Awful. She and her boys are in my prayers!
She has been problematic for a minute. She has repeatedly ignored court orders and refused to return the children on time. Her last lawyer quit too. I realize that the first instinct can be to blame the dad, especially when it seems the marriage ending was problematic, but there are larger problems at work here.
Gabrielle Union & D Wade ran off into the sunset complete with Essence Magazine & blog PR articles, and her boys. He has designed a beautiful PR campaign painting himself as Father of the Year, and she can’t get over it. She probably knows it’s all money and fame fueling his great image. I feel bad for her that she can’t center herself and do what’s best for the children no matter how much it hurts. I really don’t like this scene of men with money dumping wives (and finding new chicks) and grabbing children over and over again. Nannies and cheap chicks don’t replace mothers.
Money and Fame is why He has custody, just like Deion Sanders, Usher and Dwayne and many more stars win custody from good Mothers, who have given birth and raised their children while Fathers have chased fame and other women. Mothers in these cases lose everything and end up with a few days a month visitation or supervised visitation.All Family Court Judges say the same thing, when they give custody to Fathers.
” Father professes a willingness and ability to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship between the Mother and the children” But when they get custody they alienate the children from the Mother that the children really love, and destroy the Mother totally. Family Courts will not than admit they were wrong and return the children to their Mothers, so Mothers and children continue to suffer and the Fathers do not care. I am so very very sorry for these Mothers,The one thing these Fathers forget is that children grow up and make their own decisions and most return to their Mothers in time I WISH THEM ALL THE LUCK IN THE WORLD