MOTHER DENIED CUSTODY OF BABY

Elizabeth Township Woman Tests Positive For Drugs

Yesterday was another bad one all around for Lisa Hughes, whose baby was
stolen along with her Ford Explorer and then placed in foster care after
police discovered syringes, a crack pipe and two tiny bags of suspected
heroin in her purse inside the car.

Hughes, 32, of Elizabeth Township, began yesterday with a positive drug
test for morphine, indicating she recently used an opiate like heroin.

Then at a juvenile court hearing yesterday, Common Pleas Judge Cheryl Allen
decided to leave Hughes' son, Triston M. Smathers, in foster care. The baby
has been in the custody of Allegheny County Children, Youth and Families
since Sunday when, police said, Hughes left him in her unlocked and running
sport utility vehicle at a Giant Eagle parking lot in Harmar while she ran
into the store. The car was later recovered with the baby unharmed.

Also yesterday, Harmar police issued a warrant for Hughes' arrest, charging
her with drug violations, child endangerment, leaving a child unattended in
a motor vehicle and driving with a suspended license.

Still, Hughes felt the court and the police treated her wrongly. "I don't
think it was fair," she said after Allen, the supervising judge for
juvenile court, made her decision.

Hughes again suggested that someone planted the drugs in her car.
Initially, she claimed that the heroin as well as the syringes and a crack
pipe police found in the car were placed there by Josh Ritter, 27, of
Richland. Ritter was charged Monday with stealing her car and the baby.

Yesterday, Hughes suggested that other people had been driving and riding
in her car Sunday and they could have placed the drugs there.

Harmar police Officer Otto Gaal testified at the hearing that police have
no reason to believe that Ritter or anyone else put the drugs in Hughes' car.

Hughes has pleaded guilty on several occasions to drug use and possession,
according to court records. When Harmar police searched her car this week,
they found more drugs and two bottles of a liquid used to "cut," or
increase the volume of, heroin.

Gaal also testified that after he informed Hughes that her baby had been
found safe in the car in Pittsburgh, Hughes asked about the car, her purse
and what would happen next, but did not press him for details about the child.

The judge said she couldn't return the boy to his mother, after considering
the drug accusations and what she called Hughes' lapse in judgment in
leaving the baby unattended.

Hughes' attorney, Catherine Volponi, asked Allen to place the baby with his
grandmother, Sharon Hughes, where Lisa Hughes also lives.

Also, the baby's father, Michael Edward Smathers, an electrician from
Armstrong County, offered to take the boy, telling the judge, "I would like
to see him in my custody, and if not, with the grandmother."

Allen said she didn't have enough information about Smathers to place the
child with him.

Allen also declined to place the child with his grandmother, even though
Volponi assured the judge that Hughes would move out of her mother's home
if the judge felt that was necessary for the baby's safety.

So the boy will spend his first birthday, Saturday, in foster care. Allen
did grant weekly visits to the mother, grandmother and father, including
one Saturday.

Another hearing will be conducted within 30 days to determine whether the
boy will remain in foster care, be placed with a relative or go to one of
his parents.

Volponi and attorney Marie Webb, who represented the baby, asked Allen to
close yesterday's hearing to the public.

Allegheny County's juvenile court judges have routinely allowed the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to attend similar hearings since the paper
requested admittance Jan. 1.

Volponi said Hughes did not want reporters to attend and Webb argued that
they should not because the media may discover where the child was placed
and disrupt his life by going there. State law says such hearings in
juvenile court are closed, but a judge may admit those with a legitimate
interest in the proceeding.

W. Thomas McGough Jr., of Reed Smith LLP, Downtown, argued for the
Post-Gazette that state law gave Allen discretion to open the hearing and
that the state constitution requires it.

He also said that if the judge felt information to be revealed in some part
of the hearing would imperil the child, that particular aspect of the
proceeding could be closed.

In deciding to open the hearing, Allen pointed out that Hughes already had
repeatedly talked to reporters and given them a photograph of her son to be
published and broadcast.