Mel Gibson has been ordered to pay three months of back child support totaling $60,000 to Oksana Grigorieva for their 1-year-old daughter Lucia. Gibson previously withheld his $20,000 monthly payments while his attorneys sought clarification from the court regarding whether he could deduct the $6,000-a-month he pays for the Los Angeles home where Grigorieva and Lucia live.

Recently, Judge Scott Gordon denied the housing deduction and directed Gibson to catch up with his child support obligation.

Gordon also reportedly considered Grigorieva’s request to terminate Lucia’s overnight visitation with Gibson. According to source, Grigorieva’s request is due to her concern over Gibson’s temper and his reliance on a nanny during overnight visits.

Despite Gordon’s decision regarding child support, he is not expected to rule on the visitation issue until later this year or early 2011.

The child support issue is still a matter of temporary orders. Any child support orders issued at this stage in the litigation are considered temporary and have no bearing on the final support decision. The court will ultimately make its final child support order based upon consideration of the final financial information presented to it either at trial or via a settlement agreement.

In my experience, the fact that Gordon has put off making a decision on the visitation issue is an indication that he is not overly concerned with the temper argument. Certainly, if he felt that Lucia was at risk, a hearing would have been scheduled very quickly.

Regarding overnight visitation, some courts are not inclined to order overnight visitation for infants and even young toddlers. Some believe that more frequent, short visits are better for very young children. But as the children grow and being sleeping through the night with regularity, the arguments against overnight visitation grow weaker.

I would be surprised at this point if the judge were to restrict Gibson from exercising overnight visitation with one-year-old Lucia. The level of animosity and the parental fitness-related accusation definitely point towards a formal custody evaluation though, before any final child custody determination can be made.

Library Topics: child support, visitation, custody evaluation