From the August 2000 Idaho Observer:

Judge awards custody to Leas

Ruling marks beginning of end to 8-year nightmare; fallout may expose perverse county machine

MOSCOW -- Nearly two years after The Idaho Observer began reporting on the Leas child custody battle and after 135 court appearances over the last 7 1/2 years, Magistrate Greg Kalbfleisch ordered that Fred Leas, 51, of Helmer, be given temporary custody of his two girls Audry, 13, and Hattie, 12, as of August 3, 2000. The temporary order was made pending another hearing on the matter which has not yet been nscheduled.

Leas and eight supporters came prepared for trial, but nobody appeared in court on behalf of Leas' ex-wife Ruth Mohr. Patrick Costello of Idaho Legal Aid, a former judge who was reportedly voted off the bench in Clearwater county amid allegations of corruption, appeared telephonically to represent Mohr, a resident of New Mexico.

Costello asked that it be arranged for him to talk to the girls. Sensitive to the situation, Kalbfleisch agreed to allow Costello to interview the girls, but only after a Child Protective Services official, whom both Leas and Costello trust, has been designated to witness the interview.

“This is it,” commented Leas, who, along with everybody who has been with him throughout this ordeal, believes that the nightmare is over and certain public officials are about to pay dearly for making sure that his daughters remained in the custody of their mother and her husband Paul Mohr. The Mohrs have been linked to severe drug and alcohol abuse and large-scale drug trafficking and Paul Mohr is a convicted pedophile (See The Idaho Observer, November, 1998; February, 2000).

The Mohrs have committed the most heinous of offenses and attempted to frame Leas with them in order to have him thrown in prison. State and county officials participated in these horrors, apparently protecting some underworld relationship with the Mohrs.

The fallout from seven years of official complicity and coverup in the Leas child custody case has already begun. Leas filed a civil action against Child Psychologist Greg Wilson for his role in this conspiracy. A hearing on that matter has been scheduled for August 21, 2000. Leas is expected to keep filing lawsuits until every elected official and elected bureaucrat who has participated in this travesty has been held publicly accountable for his actions.