TAMPA, Fla. — Ulysess Carwise doesn't like to spend much time in his daughter's room.
"This has been her room since she was a newborn baby," he said.
It's a room Carwise prepared for his little girl, who may never come home. There's a small pink table on the far wall, with topped with children's books.
“Books I was gonna read," Carwise said, flipping through the pages.
The bed, covered with a "Frozen" blanket — unused. The closet — filled only with empty hangers.
“We ended up giving most of the stuff away because she outgrew it," Carwise said, looking around at what now serves as a painful reminder.
His daughter, the baby he loved from the day she was born, is now five years old.
"I’m her father. Her real father. I’m not trying to adopt her. I’m her father," Carwise said.
Carwise is fighting for his daughter after an adoption agency took her two days after she was born without his knowledge or consent. His case reveals the battle unwed fathers can face over parental rights, who determines what's best for a child, and the Florida laws that allow this to happen.
Carwise pulled out pictures of his daughter taken while she was still in the hospital. When she was born, she tested positive for cocaine. Her mother, Nikita Adkins, was using drugs, according to documents from the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Carwise told the I-Team he wanted the baby girl to come home with him but not Adkins because of her struggle with addiction.
After getting off of work doing maintenance for the Hillsborough County School Board, where he's worked for more than 35 years, Carwise said, "I went back to Nikki, I said, 'Where’s the baby at?' And she said, 'Well, I put the baby up for adoption because I was angry at you,' she said. I said, 'You did what?'"
Carwise told DCF he wanted his daughter. But he needed to prove he was the father because he and Adkins weren't married.
“When the test came back, they said it was 9.5, 99-something, that the baby was mine. I said, 'Ok, well, it’s over then!'”
It wasn't. The fight for his daughter is still going on.
"Just give me my child. I’ve been saying that the whole time I’ve been going to court. Give me my child. I don’t need y’all help. Give me my child. And they won’t listen," Carwise said.
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, arguing he had abandoned his daughter because he did not financially support her while she was not in his custody.
After the trial, it took the court nearly a year to rule.
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Carwise's rights were not terminated. But his daughter stayed with Katrina and Willian while they filed an appeal. As months turned into years, his little girl has grown more attached to the only family and home she has known.
"Now she thinks they are her parents," Carwise said of the prospective adoptive parents.
The couple calls her by a different name. Carwise wishes she could call him "Dad."
"All she knows is I’m Mr. Ulysess and I send her nice stuff. That’s it," Carwise said.
Initially, Carwise had in-person visits with his daughter at an Orlando mall. Those in-person visits stopped at the start of the pandemic. For the past three years, he has not touched his daughter. The visits have been restricted to Zoom once a week.
In an emailed statement, Bethany Christian Services told the I-Team, "For the confidentiality and privacy of our clients and families, Bethany Christian Services is not able to speak about this adoption case. This case is ongoing, and we are praying for all of the individuals involved."
"That’s my family. That is my child. They’re not saving no child. They are harming that child," Carwise told the I-Team.
The prospective adoptive parents filed a new lawsuit in Hillsborough County this year, another petition to terminate his parental rights.
"It’s just getting difficult. Ok? It’s getting real hard," Carwise said, overwhelmed with emotion. “That’s the first time it hit me hard. I’ve been like fighting these people, fighting these people."
One of his younger sisters, Rosalyn Green, has stood beside her brother as he fights for his daughter.
“It’s a huge eye-opener," she said. “That the law would allow these people to literally, legally, take someone else’s child."
Carwise plans to live in Green's house when he gets custody of his daughter.
“He has the support that he needs to take care of this child," Green said.
That includes the support of his 26-year-old daughter, who he raised as a single father.
"I want my niece to know that we didn’t give her up," Green said. "And that we're here to fight for her."
David Veliz, Carwises's former court-appointed attorney from Orange County, told the I-Team he can't believe Carwise is still fighting, now in Hillsborough County.
"The fact that has gone on this long and something hasn't been done to give him his child is just — I think a travesty," Veliz said. "They were doing everything imaginable to just keep him from getting his child, which they continue to do, it appears, today.”
Veliz said an argument made was that Carwise doesn't really have a relationship with his daughter.
"You’re not giving him an opportunity to build a relationship with the child," Veliz said. "And it’s not for a lack of him trying."
Veliz said something has to be done to put an end to the case.
"It’s been an injustice what’s been done to him," Veliz said. “Everybody should care about it because it could happen to anybody.”
It could, but it's unclear how often it does, as court records in these cases are not made public.
Jeanne Tate, a long-time adoption attorney based in Tampa, is representing the prospective adoptive parents. Tate opened a private adoption agency in 2001, Heart of Adoptions.
The I-Team called Tate's office and emailed her and she responded in a voicemail and email that although she would like to comment, Florida law prevents her from commenting on the matter or confirming her involvement.
This story came from a tip. If you have something you’d like the I-Team to investigate, email kylie.mcgivern@wfts.com