Help Support the Gomez Family in Nicaragua

I put together this fundraising page to help my good friends Molly (Bourg) Gomez, her husband Ballardo (we call him Jose) Gomez, and their two young boys, Sam and Max. 

In 1985, Jose came to the United States as a legal permanent resident with his parents and siblings.  In 1996, he was convicted of a crime that ultimately led to his deportation to Nicaragua in 2002.  Molly and Jose met in Seattle in February 2004 and were married in April 2005.  On Memorial Day weekend last year, Jose was taken into immigration custody.  He was charged with Illegal Reentry into the U.S. after Removal, spent over one year in custody, and was deported to Nicaragua this summer.  This July, Molly and the boys moved to Nicaragua to reunite their family.

With help from a previous fundraiser, Molly was able to get good immigration advice about Jose's situation.  After working with many attorneys, the family has decided the best course of action is to challenge the underlying reason for Jose's deportation.  To do this, Molly and Jose hired a criminal appeals attorney.  The attorney has drafted a personal restraint petition to challenge Jose's old conviction based on ineffective assistance of his defense counsel.   If you want to see a copy of the petition, which outlines the MANY ways Jose's attorney was ineffective, please send me a message through the link to the right.

The outcome of Jose's petition depends heavily on the results of a pending U.S. Supreme Court Case, Chaidez v. U.S.  That case will be argued in front of the Supreme Court on October 30, 2012, but it will be several months before we know the outcome. Although Molly has paid the appeals attorney several thousand dollars already, the family still owes him about $7000, with more bills coming.  If the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court case is favorable, the bills will be even higher because the case will require more investigation and probably a factual hearing.  Any money raised through this website will go to legal fees and costs unless the amount raised exceeds the total legal fees required for this case.  If the amount raised exceeds the total attorney fees, the extra money will help Jose and Molly in their new life in Nicaragua.

These are very complicated concepts, so feel free to contact me for more information.  Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated by me, Molly, and Jose. 

Thank you for visiting the website and taking the time to read about the Gomez family.  Please help in any way you can!

Heather McKimmie