I think this has been my most important conversation yet, and my hope is that you will first and foremost; CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR/SENATOR and urge this bill to be passed (HB 272-OM'S LAW) and secondly, share this with your friends and family and ask them to do the same. So many women and children are being abused and don't say anything because it is almost always made worse for them. "Getting out" or "Walking away" isn't that easy. No one should have to live a nightmare like Leah did for YEARS. She is my friend. I have other friends facing the same consequences she did, as a result of legal abuse and uneducated "experts" who have no expertise in domestic violence or child abuse. Please message the senator in your county and urge HB272, "Om's Law," to PASS. We have one week. This goes to the senate last week of February.

YOUR LEGISLATOR
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12u3w5Fxb9_upRC2kWWlkcNjK2MnzYYfDsfvJ4CZp6Qc/edit?usp=sharing

TO CONTACT YOUR SENATOR: https://senate.utah.gov/contact

Power and Control Wheel

https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/power-and-control/ Utah

Domestic Violence Coalition

https://udvc.org/

The Safe Child Project

https://thepolicyproject.org

National Safe Parents Org

https://www.nationalsafeparents.org/kaydens-law.html

House Bill 272 Bill language: https://le.utah.gov/~2024/bills/static/HB0272.html

Watch proceedings: https://le.utah.gov/FloorCalendars/

House Floor reading and vote 22:18 Cutler’s presentation https://le.utah.gov/av/floorArchive.jsp?markerID=126353

Om's Law: Keeping Children Safe From Family Violence

Utah House Bill 272

House Judiciary Committee Testimony

February 8, 2024 

My name is Leah Moses, I’m Om’s mom.

9 months ago, my 16-year-old son Om was murdered by his father on Mother’s Day weekend during court-ordered parent time. Om was brutally shot twice in the back and once in his face by a 45 caliber handgun bought from a pawn shop on the same State Street in Salt Lake City as the courthouse where I fought in family court for 14 years trying to keep my children safe. I supplied the courts with extensive evidence of Om's father's abuse and the risk to my children, but it fell on deaf ears.

This morning it is my impossible task to represent thousands of protective parents and children who share their own, but similar experiences living in violence and who are not safe to speak out because they will be abused, tonight, tomorrow, and this weekend.

I mothered in violence for the entirety of Om’s 17 years. I never imagined I’d be safe enough to speak the truth publicly, but now I’m no longer hunted.  My son stood in the face of lethal danger and freed me. And now I will speak for all of us, in his honor.

Om was conceived in the violence of rape and executed as a hostage in the violence of control. Despite years of begging for relief, he was powerless to escape, trapped in childhood by a psychotic parent and ultimately trapped and killed in an enclosed office. Throughout the litigation, even as a young child, Om asked me when the court would allow him to speak. They never did.

My ex-spouse was always abusive. I’m not sure during which of the countless early rapes Om was conceived, whether it was when I was shoved in a closet, suffocated in the front seat of a car, drugged and abandoned on a couch or forced under a blanket in a crowded room, but when I was dropped off to planned parenthood with an ultimatum between an abortion or my life, I gave up the life I knew to keep the pregnancy.  I chose Om, and our life as prisoners began.

He was a 6’3” 280lb PhD psychologist. In public, he maintained a professional appearance using the guise of a model parent, the persona of an enlightened religious yoga instructor, intent on healing sexual trauma, but in private he perpetuated a lifetime of relentless, systematic rape and calculated psychological control. This is what countless abusers do, but court professionals sometimes have little understanding about how abusers operate, and they rarely believe it when told, thanks in large part to attorneys for the abuser and so-called experts attacking credibility and asserting the protective parent is lying, hysterical or alienating.  

When Om was a baby, I did everything I could to protect him from abuse, but there was no escape from his dad’s volatile tirades. It was impossible to avoid the spit spraying our faces when he screamed profanities. When he came home angry, I wedged a chair under the back door handle to buy enough time to hide under Om’s crib, breastfeeding to keep him quiet. When he backed us into corners, I shielded Om from his fist brushing our faces, smashing the wall next to my head. Drunk and enraged, he would throw Om crying into the backseat, force me into his car, and then try to push me out speeding down the freeway.

I had no reproductive choice. He prohibited contraception. Emotionless, he forced me to watch him flush the small, formed fetus from a miscarriage down the toilet as I bled on the bathroom tile. Rapes continued, and I hid my next pregnancy as long as possible, desperate for my daughter to survive. His power and control escalated, and after a year of secret planning, I moved out at 6 months pregnant. Desperate to lure me back, he promised improvement and I moved back just before delivery. Terrified that hospital staff might detect abuse and take Om from me, I avoided most prenatal care and went to a birth center for delivery. I wanted to protect my child before all else.

Towering over us, he would declare “I own you" as if we were his property, and “you’ll never survive without me”. We were under constant surveillance, stalked, and required to report every action. I wasn’t allowed to work. The threats to kill me and take the children escalated, and I moved out again. People ask why don't victims just leave? It's not that simple. This time I was homeless with a baby and preschooler. We lived in friend’s spare rooms, basements, above garages, or out of a car. Isolated, without money or options and convinced by him that I was rejected by my family and friends, I reluctantly forfeited my pro se protective order and moved back. The domestic violence case detective was so mad she said I should never ask for help again, that I’d never be believed.

To maintain control, he bought an old mouse-infested cinderblock duplex and demanded that the kids and I live on one side while he lived on the