
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 11, 1995                   TAG: 9511120008
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

EX-MISS VA. LOSES SON'S CUSTODY

Former Miss Virginia Lisa Aliff may have been unfairly charged with abducting her 5-year-old son during a bitter divorce, a Bedford County judge ruled this week, but she still lost custody of the boy.

Circuit Judge William Sweeney awarded custody of the boy to his father, Lewis "Rick" Hawkins of Bedford County.

Aliff, a model and actress who lives in California, was charged in September with abduction after Hawkins went to Bedford authorities and said she had failed to return their son to him at the end of the summer in accordance with a visitation order.

But the charge was dropped later at the request of prosecutor Randy Krantz, who said Hawkins made no mention of an amended court order that allowed Aliff to have the boy in California at the time she was charged.

"The father was most to blame in misrepresenting a summer visitation custody order, resulting in the mother being arrested and jailed," Sweeney wrote in a letter to attorneys.

Sweeney wrote that he had considered and rejected a joint custody agreement "because of the present friction and lack of cooperation between the parents."

After hearing from 31 witnesses, Sweeney decided to grant custody to Hawkins based on all the factors, but "especially the backup support from both maternal and paternal grandparents in Virginia, the economic potential of the father as compared to that of the mother, and travel considerations of interested parties."

Aliff, a Roanoke native who was crowned Miss Virginia in 1983, will be allowed to have her son in California for the summers, and also will have visitation over Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

by CNB