Amanda

Amanda Estelle Mayes

Amanda Mayes is a dirty bitch. She is determined to take our ongoing dispute over custody of our children public and she wants to drag my oldest biological daughter into it. To defend myself and my rights and the rights of my children, I'm going to have to file a few things in the First District Court of Appeals shortly. (I'm also apparently going to have to join my daughter in suing the Legal Aid Society.) Once I make my filing in the Court of Appeals, it will become part of the public record. Better to begin the public discussion here on this blog than to have the story told elsewhere.

When I met Amanda she was separated from her husband, Allan Ralph, and living on Martin Luther King Drive with her lesbian lover, a woman named Janice. (I'm not going to publish Janice's last name today.)(Amanda has a huge tattoo on her back with Janice's name on it.)(Amanda dissolved her marriage in 2003. See case number DR0302285.)

Not long after I met Amanda, we became friends. (The truth is I thought we were friends but I now see that we never were friends.) Thinking we were friends, we began sharing things with each other. Amanda showed me pictures she took with Allan and Janice. (I think I just might still have some of those pictures with her and Janice laying around this old house somewhere.) She told me about her past relationships. She told me about how she left Allan for Janice. She told me about her relationships with her father, Ron Mayes (a white man who Amanda now claims is on drugs) and her sisters. One of Amanda's sisters, Victoria Mayes, has a lengthy criminal record in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Until last December, Amanda described her family as "rotten" and said she hated Vicki. Now that she needs them, she has changed her tune quite a bit.

Right around the time I began dating Amanda, she began also dating Tyrone Yates. She would spend the night at his house, go out to dinner with him, talk on the phone with him for hours, etc. Tyrone would send her flowers, cards, notes and emails saying he loved her and wanted to marry her. (I might have some of those emails laying around here too.) The relationship between Amanda and Tyrone was certainly an intimate and romantic one. She told me everything. She told me when they began messing around -- everything from kissing to him fondling and sucking her breast to them seeing each other naked and on to other things. Tyrone trusted Amanda (something I've learned is a big mistake). He began sharing his secrets with her and she'd tell them all to me. One of Tyrone's not-so-well-kept secrets (at least in the Black political community) is that he is gay -- he has had sex with other men. He is in a long-term relationship with a man who lives in Dayton. (Just like I won't publish Janice's last name today, I also won't publish the name or address of Tyrone's male lover. Maybe later, but not today.) Yes, Tyrone was married to Veronica Chapman for a short time, but that was a sham marriage. It was dissolved in 1999. (See, case number DR9902549.)

Amanda would tell me that Tyrone was way too old for her but she still liked him. He mostly treated her nicely. At times he lectured her like a father might do to his daughter, but she seemed to like his sermons. Then, one day, Amanda claimed that things between her and Tyrone had changed because he acted violently and aggressively toward her. She claimed to be afraid of him. At the time, I believed her. Little did I know that she would accuse many people, including me, of doing things that freightened her.

Although they stopped messing around, Tyrone and Amanda never stopped talking to one another. They pledged never to tell each other's secrets, especially the ones concerning their homosexual encounters.

Amanda began dating Tyrone before he first ran for and was elected to a seat in the Ohio General Assembly. After Tyrone got elected he voted to give the Legal Aid society millions of dollars. When I filed for custody of my children, Amanda asked Tyrone for help. I've known dozens of women and men who've asked the Legal Aid Society to help them with a custody matter and they've all been told that Legal Aid doesn't have the resources to do custody cases. These people are Ohio residents. Amanda lives in Michigan. Taxpayers might want to know that the Legal Aid Society has assigned THREE lawyers to represent Amanda in the custody case.

If you read this blog, you know that some people, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, have called on Marc Dann to resign from his position as Ohio Attorney General. They say he has acted unethically. Well, would it be ethical for a member of the state legislature to vote to give money to an organization, then call that organization and tell them to spend money on his lover?