In re M.M. CA2/2

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. The Family

M.M. was born to mother and an unknown man in February 2008. In December 2016, the family court granted father full legal and physical custody over M.M. Although a DNA test confirmed that father is not M.M.’s biological father, the juvenile court ruled that he is her presumed father.

Father now uses the name Brother M.

2 II. “Whoopings” and Isolation Father openly admitted to “whooping” M.M. with a leather belt on more than one occasion. He did it at least one time when she was 11 or 12 years old. He did it again in August 2022, when she was 14 years old. In the August 2022 incident, father became “outrage[d]” and “angry” when M.M. was texting mother on a cell phone; he proceeded to give her a “whooping” by “lashing” her five times on the buttocks, leg, and back with a leather belt. After each of the first four lashes he explained why he was whooping her, and described the fifth lash as “one to grow on.” Father converted to Islam in 2018 and is a sheik of the Moorish Science Temple of America. He explained that he “obey[s] the ordinance of Allah.” When asked why he repeatedly lashed M.M. with a belt, father further…