by: Aubree Bailey
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) — On the same day the Judicial Inquiry Commission filed a complaint against Jefferson County Judge Nakita Blocton, a Birmingham mother filed a complaint against her as well.
According to the complaint, Angelik Sims claimed that Blocton, a domestic relations judge from the Tenth Judicial Circuit, “conspired and acted under color of state law to deprive her and her two minor children of their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law.”
Sims said she encountered Blocton when her husband, Victor Sims II, filed proceedings for dissolution of marriage in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County. An Ex Parte hearing was held on December 9, 2019, in which Blocton barred the mother from any contact with her two young children after her husband verbally alleged she was of unsound mental health.Sims alleges that Blocton’s ruling was unfair because, according to the mother of two, there was no hard evidence against her to suggest she was not able to care for her children or that she has had mental health difficulties.
“Even judges can’t just make rulings; they have to have evidence and witnesses,” Sims said in a phone interview with CBS 42. “It doesn’t take being a lawyer to see that she didn’t have something to show that I was on drugs or anything. I’ve never had any of issues that would cause me not to be able to care for my children.”
“She began to use her position and authority as a weapon. She left that order in place and did not revisit it for five months… truly you could drive a mother crazy allowing no contact with their children,” detailed Sims in the interview.
Sims claimed that Blocton’s personal relationship with Kathryn E. Thompkins, her children’s attorney, stood in the way of a fair ruling. According to the complaint, Blocton and Thompkins “engaged in unconstitutional practices contravening 42 U.S.C 1983” and “corruptly conspired to improperly interfere with Angelik’s fundamental rights and privileges to familiar relationships”.
Sims alleged in the same complaint that she was threatened by Blocton on social media, and the mother shared in the phone interview that she believed it was because she expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling.
“I expressed to her that this doesn’t make sense,” she said. “You can’t take a person’s child just because someone said they have issues. You have to have hard evidence. Me sharing that possibly made her feel like I was challenging her authority. Truly, I wasn’t challenging her authority; I was being a parent.”
According to the complaint, Sims filed a separate complaint to the Federal Bureau of Investigation against Blocton due to the alleged threats.
“First and foremost, I would like to receive justice because that time I spent away from my children I cannot get that time back. I lost so many memories,” Sims said in her interview with CBS 42. “My prayer is that the JIC holds her accountable. The things that she’s done not only to me but other families is scary; to know that someone with that type authority over so many lives and people is scary. I would like to encourage all of those with titles and previsions to operate with integrity to not make judgements or rulings based off personal relationships.”
Attempts to reach Emory Anthony, Blocton’s attorney, for comment were not successful.
A previous version of this story stated that Kathyrn E. Thompkins
was the attorney for Sims’ ex-husband. She was the attorney for Sims’
children, also known as guardian ad litem.
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