Fighting a Criminal Conversion Charge in Hamilton County

August 2025

This month, I was to stand before a jury in Hamilton County, Indiana, facing a criminal conversion charge for something that thousands of parents do every day: taking away my child’s phone as a form of discipline.

Yes — you read that correctly. I was being criminally prosecuted for exercising parental discipline in my own home.

The Incident

During visitation, I took my daughter’s phone after she became aggressive and verbally abusive. As her mother, I had every right — and every responsibility — to set boundaries and enforce discipline. At the time, I was concerned about her emotional well-being, her behavior, and the negative influences tied to that device.

What should have been a normal act of parenting was twisted into an accusation of “criminal conversion.” Instead of respecting my role as a parent, the Carmel Police Department and Hamilton County Prosecutor chose to treat me as a criminal while interfering with my parental rights after having already interfered with my custody rights. (A story for another post).

Why This Matters

This case is about far more than a cell phone. At its core, it raises an urgent question:

When did parenting become a crime?

Parents are expected to guide, discipline, and protect their children. Yet in my case, these ordinary responsibilities are being weaponized against me. By treating discipline as theft, the system is criminalizing parenthood itself — especially when the parent is a survivor of domestic violence and custody interference.

A Pattern of Retaliation

This trial is not an isolated event. It is the latest chapter in a long and painful pattern of false allegations, custodial interference, and systemic retaliation that I have endured for 11+ years. Every time I have spoken up, every time I have defended my rights as a parent, new accusations have been manufactured to silence and discredit me.

The criminal conversion charge is just one more attempt to break me down.

What Comes Next

In the courtroom, I could have and would have presented my truth and outside of it, I will not be silent. This blog series will document not only this trial of malicious prosecution and false charges, but the years of events that led up to it: custody battles, court failures, police misconduct, housing discrimination, failure to investigate, evidence tampering and the many ways systems have failed to protect both me and my child.

Because this trial is not just about a phone.

It is about my right to be a mother.

It is about my right to live free from harassment, retaliation, and abuse under color of law.

And it is about exposing how easily parental rights (and civil rights for that matter) can be stripped away when corruption and bias are allowed to fester in our institutions.

Preview of the Next Post

To understand how this criminal charge could even exist, we need to go back to 2014 — when I was wrongfully trespassed from housing and denied federally-funded family services, leaving me homeless while still fighting to keep custody of my daughter.

Stay with me as I walk backwards through the years that led here. My story matters — because what happened to me can happen to any parent who dares to stand up against abuse and systemic injustice.