This past summer and fall, Jeremy Hales, on his popular YouTube channel What the Hale$, created a new angle from his evolving storyline: “Bad Neighbors.”

He had already sued John Cook and Michelle Preston for defamation, tortious interference, and more. All parties currently live in Otter Creek, Florida (Hales also has property in Ohio, where he stays part of the year as well).

Now, he was claiming that Michelle’s adopted four-year-old daughter- she has since turned five- was in danger.

Hales entered the defendant’s property, started filming, and claimed the girl was stuck in a dirty trailer.

The police and Child Protective Services (CPS) both came to Preston’s home to check on the condition of the girl several times. Bruce Matzkin, who is representing Preston and Cook in their civil suit with Hales, said CPS came twenty-eight times when Richard Luthmann and I interviewed him.

All of the allegations wound up unsubstantiated.

Hales may have done even more. The girl was adopted at birth from two drug-addicted parents; Preston convinced the biological mother not to abort the child so Preston could raise the girl.

There is no question that members of the biological family filed a bogus petition; it’s not clear how much involvement Hales had.

He definitely interviewed them and set up a fundraiser for legal bills.

In the video, these family members even suggested that the adoption was fraudulent. There is no evidence of fraud.

On September 26, 2024, the girl’s biological aunt, Olga Nelson, filed an “Emergency Petition for Temporary Custody by extended family.”

I reached out to Ms. Nelson through Facebook Messenger, but she did not respond.

The lawyer hired to file this bogus petition was Jenny Consuegra from the Miami Family Law Group

I reached out to Ms. Consuegra by email but received no response. I also emailed the head of the law firm, Emily Phillips, but received no response.

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I also sent an email to Hales’s attorney, Randall Shochet, but he didn’t respond.

The petition was based on a blatant misreading of the law.

In this portion of the petition, Consuegra made two frivolous arguments. First, as the biological aunt of a girl adopted at birth, Ms. Nelson has no more standing to file than do I or anyone else. Consuegra acknowledged that Nelson’s brother had his rights terminated.

Consuegra wasn’t done; she claimed that Nelson was “fictive kin.”

The definition of fictive kin is “a person unrelated by birth, marriage, or adoption who has an emotionally significant relationship to a child.”

A biological aunt who hasn’t seen the child since birth is not fictive kin. The girl was adopted at birth; Ms. Nelson may have seen her at the hospital, and that’s it.

Then, Consuegra, using the legal term “upon information and belief,” listed all the allegations that brought the petition. Upon information and belief is the legal equivalent of “according to anonymous sources.”

The bottom of this portion of the petition gave the game away, “Screenshots taken from YouTube video shot on the property.”

Consuegra was using screenshots from Hales’s YouTube channel; Consuegra thought unsubstantiated allegations made by a YouTuber involved in a lawsuit with the girl’s parents were enough to file a petition to change custody.

Consuegra even used screenshots from Hales’s YouTube videos as exhibits.

Hales acknowledged in videos that he called CPS; in the video below, his YouTube partner stated, “When we called CPS the third time.” {The video is advanced to that portion.}

Nelson also said she called CPS several times in one of the filings.

In that same filing, Consuegra admitted that none of the calls went anywhere because they originated with Hales.

Consuegra even had the gall to suggest that the original adoption was done fraudulently.

Attorney Dawn Bates Buchanan handled the adoption.

Ms. Buchanan declined to comment when I reached her about these allegations, but she appeared on the podcast Two Lee’s in a Pod to shoot down the allegations.

Ms. Preston declined to comment.

The petition filed by Consuegra was dismissed days after it was filed in a cursory order.

Hales moved on to other storylines shortly after the order came down.

Postscript