ORLANDO, Fla. — A Tampa father was back in court this week to prevent the adoption of his 5-year-old daughter.
In May, the ABC Action News I-Team introduced you to Ulysess Carwise, whose girlfriend at the time gave up their newborn daughter without his knowledge or consent. Carwise has been fighting to raise her himself ever since.
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The case highlights an often private battle unmarried fathers can face and the Florida laws that allow it to happen.
On Monday, Carwise, with the support of family and friends, made the trip to the Orange County Courthouse, where the case began.
His attorney's emergency motion to relinquish the child, which led to Monday's hearing, came years after the adoption agency Bethany Christian Services and prospective adoptive parents, referred to only as Katrina and William Doe in court records, took Carwise to court in Orange County to terminate his parental rights. They argued he abandoned his daughter because he did not financially support her while she was not in his custody.
After the trial, it took the judge nearly a year to rule. Carwise's rights were not terminated. But his daughter stayed with Katrina and William while they filed an appeal. They lost that appeal earlier this year before filing another suit in Hillsborough County.
“All I wanted was my daughter. That they took from me from the hospital," Carwise told the I-Team outside of the Orange County Courthouse on Monday.
Carwise is not alone. But it's the type of case that rarely makes the news because the hearings are private.
After the hearing, Carwise told the I-Team, "My understanding is I need to file some more paperwork stating that I’m the father. No matter what. Because – they know I’m the father, but it ain’t in black and white."
A DNA test shortly after his daughter's birth proved he is her father. Carwise and his attorneys said he filed the paperwork to establish paternity through the court years ago, but the case never moved forward. Meanwhile, his daughter continues to live with the prospective adoptive parents, the only family she's known.
After the I-Team's story aired in May, Carwise was allowed to visit with his little girl in person. For years, since the start of the pandemic, the visits were only over Zoom.
“She came, and she ran to me, gave me a hug. I don’t know if she knows exactly who I am, but she gave me a hug, and we talked, the little bit that we could talk," Carwise said, who his daughter knows as "Mr. Ulysess."
“You got to just say your prayers and put it in God’s hands," Carwise said. “I want my own child to raise. I don’t need you. I’ve been telling them that since day one. Now she’s like five years old, and now these people think they got some right to my child. I don’t understand that. I just don’t."
For the first time, the I-Team spoke with Nikita Adkins, the child's birth mother, who was brought into Monday's hearing.
“It’s just taken way too long. Everybody wants her home, and that’s just it. He’s fighting for her. He loves her," Adkins said.
The I-Team has reached out to the attorney representing the prospective adoptive parents for comment but has not yet heard back.
The next hearing is scheduled for mid-July.
New Florida law to give more parental rights to unmarried biological fathers
Earlier this month, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law known as the "Good Dad Act." That will give unmarried fathers who have proven they are biological fathers the same rights and responsibilities the mother has.
The law goes into effect July 1 and could impact cases like Carwise's.
