It’s official: Jenelle Evans has regained custody of her teenage son, Jace.
The Sun announced on Thursday (and The Ashley can confirm) that Child Protective Services (CPS)— who has had custody of Jace for the past few months— dropped the case and awarded custody back to the fired Teen Mom 2 star. This comes after a five-month battle between Jenelle, her mom Barbara and CPS over custody of Jace, following his running away after allegedly being assault by Jenelle’s husband David Eason.
Jenelle also hopped on social media on Thursday to announce that the CPS custody case has been dropped.
Here, The Ashley will provide additional details of what’s happened and what’s happening going forward in regard to the custody situation…
According to The Sun, the case was dropped on February 13. The Ashley can confirm that all involved parties— Jenelle, Barbara, as well as Jace’s dad Andrew Lewis and others— were informed of custody being awarded back to Jenelle on Tuesday night.
The Ashley can also confirm that the gag order that has been in effect for the case since December has also been dropped. (This means that Jenelle did not violate anything when she spoke about the case on social media on Thursday.)
Despite Jenelle stating in the post that “all allegations against me and my husband have been officially dropped,” The Ashley would like to stress that the CPS case is separate from the criminal case pending against David in regard to his alleged assault of Jace. David’s criminal charges are still pending and, if convicted, he faces jail time for his felony “assault by strangulation” charge and misdemeanor child abuse charge.
“The CPS case being dropped has no effect on David’s criminal case,” one source tells The Ashley.
Because of the CPS case being dismissed, custody of Jace will go back to Jenelle, who had custody of the 14-year-old before the case was filed and Jace was removed from Jenelle’s care in early October.
“That means that, while Jenelle has legal custody of Jace, the custody agreement that was in existence before [the CPS case was filed] between Barbara and Jenelle will once again be active,” the source said. “Before all this, Jenelle had some legal requirements in terms of letting Barbara see Jace, etc. so that will all go back into effect.”
That being said, The Ashley can confirm that, currently, Jace is not physically with Jenelle and will likely not be for a while.
“Jace is not living with Barbara or Jenelle right now and won’t be for a long time” the source said, adding that Jace is no longer living with the person connected to David whom he had been living with for the past month or so.
“Jace left [that person’s home] last week,” a local source tells The Ashley. “An incident went down, but it wasn’t anything that [the caretaker] did wrong.”
One thing that should also be noted is that, even though Jenelle has custody, a “no contact” order is still in place between David and Jace, due to the fact that the no contact order stems from David’s criminal case and not the CPS case.
“That means, should Jace leave the place he’s at right now, he can not move back into Jenelle’s home, unless David no longer lives there,” the source stated.
(The Ashley can confirm, though, that Jace and David have been in contact. In fact, a judge in the CPS case ruled for at least one exception last month that allowed David and Jace to be at the same place at the same time.)
“Even though Jace is not in the physical custody of Jenelle, she will have the decision-making power to make medical and other decisions for him,” a second source tells The Ashley. “That also means, though, that Jenelle will be financially responsible for Jace’s care, so she will have to pay out of pocket or through whatever insurance she has for co-pays and other costs for his care.”
(The source stated that, while under CPS care, Jace’s costs were paid for by the state.)
Jenelle herself confirmed that she reached out to MTV to see if they would help pay for Jace’s care, but they ignored her request.
As for why the Abuse, Neglect and Dependency case for Jace was dropped, The Ashley’s source says that “Jenelle’s lawyers were able to find some details and mistakes made by CPS, and they basically manipulated those mistakes and the case was dropped.”
“It came as a big surprise to everyone,” the second source stated.
It is unknown at this time if Jenelle’s mom Barbara, or Jace’s father Andrew (who is back in the teen’s life) will fight to get custody of Jace from Jenelle.
Later on Thursday, Jenelle posted another video to social media, stating that she announced the custody news on TikTok because she wanted to beat The Sun‘s article that was coming out announcing it.
“After my TikTok is posted, the article comes out and words are twisted,” Jenelle said. “The article she wrote is bad but this is actually really good news. It’s really great news for my family, and everybody should be happy. But, instead, The Sun wants to make my life miserable.”
The Ashley will update this story soon. Stay tuned…
(Photos: Instagram; MTV; Facebook)
I want everyone to take a moment and remember Jace sitting in the back seat of Jenelle’s car while she was crying and him trying to sooth her and singing that sad little heartbreaking song. That little boy who was so sweet and senstive and just wanted a mom who loved him as much as he loved her. That little boy is systematically being destroyed. We are watching in real time the making of a tragedy that someday will be world wide news.
The system in NC I’d serious flawed, wtf .
I thought Florida had a sorry CPS system, but damn, North Carolina’s is absolute shit.
1,000%! CPS honestly fails more than it helps. I’ve seen it with people I actually know and it’s all over the US… So many children are taken from unsavory homes, albeit, safe and they are being cared for, and thrust into Foster homes where they are subjected to abuse and more trauma than they would have ever seen with, say, a functioning alcoholic (but NOT abusive or neglecting) parent. Now, I’m not saying it makes it right to leave a child with a parent in that situation BUT sometimes it’s the lesser evil and what’s honestly best for the child over being mentally, physically and sexually abused in a Foster home. Sorry not sorry. Then you have cases like this- where there IS abuse and two people that have proven to be unstable, drug/alcohol use, neglect AND abusive- and CPS gives them right back because their “ultimate goal” is to reunite families. There has been a few cases also where a mother DOES do what is necessary for a child and takes them for medical intervention, only for the medical community to accuse the mother of neglect and abuse- when that never was the case- at least not intentional. Syesha Mercado is a perfect example. That whole thing was so very wrong. It says a lot that Jenelle has custody, yet he’s not living with her and I don’t think the fact that he cannot because of the criminal case, has anything to do with it.
To be honest, I do agree that MTV should help pay for his mental health treatment, as well as provide full-ride college scholarships to every child they exploited on the show.
They’ve made so much money off of these kids, who had no say in whether they grew up in the spotlight, and then dump them like they’re trash when they’re done with them, it’s disgusting.
I am constantly astonished that governments keep funding CPS and citizens tolerate it. They literally never get it right. David is clearly an abuser and a ticking timebomb but they will not take custody from him. Other families who are poor and just struggling but trying they will take kids from in a split second.
It’s like they say :Money Talks” it sucks though.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. It pisses me off and breaks my heart for Jace. Who exactly is supposed to protect him? His mother won’t, CPS drops the ball repeatedly and the court system favors abusers versus actually protecting children. I wouldn’t trust Jenelle with the decision of paper or plastic at a grocery store so to think she has the mental capacity to make medical decisions (or any decision for that matter) on behalf of Jace is laughable. What we do know is that she will always choose David. Always. He can murder the family pets, supposedly “break her collarbone”, strangle Jace, etc and it doesn’t matter. Jenelle will choose him over her children any day of the week. I wish I could wipe that smug smart ass smirk off of her face.
For him to get removed from a 3rd place goes to show he needs some serious help and hopefully now he’s getting that help. More to the story than being told.
She has such a Punchable face.
Here’s hoping she gets what she deserves. I hate this freaking bitch so much.
She always looks so damn smug.
The Sun wants to make her life miserable?! I think the Mistress of the Swamp does a fine job of doing that all by herself. As for the rest, I hope this poor boy is somewhere safe and receiving whatever assistance he needs.
How is sad? I think Janelle and David are the source did they cry about so much
Thank goodness for The Ashley. Bringing the real facts out. Thank god that boy is not anywhere near them right now. I sincerely hope he will be ok from here on out but with her in charge, I doubt it. Hopefully he’s mentally stronger than she will ever be.
So it’s not that she was found to be a fit parent. This doesn’t prove that at all. And the fact that she tried to get mtv to pay for her kid 😂 the fkn nerve
Hopefully Jace NEVER returns to the land. He’d be better off being raised by raccoons
Unfortunately David’s charges will be dropped without the cps case and already allowing David and Jace to be in the sane place . watch nothing will happen to David have will move back rinse repeat till someone is dead
North Carolina has really failed. This child no matter what mistakes were made. You can clearly clearly see at this point that he has been abused by Janelle at the least neglected, allowing her disgusting husband to strangle him, and probably the worst mental abuse, possibly physical by her as well… this should say a lot to the people that live in North Carolina, your state and its system is pretty trash if you guys allow this
💯 agree!!! The state of North Carolina’s DCFS has FAILED Jace and his half brother and his half sister!! This is going to end badly and then the DCFS will have to answer the questions about why they didn’t do anything more about Jenelle and “Uncle Bad Touch” about possibly having the children completely removed from them!! They will all lose their jobs!!
Eventually, they’ll be a documentary about Jace and Kaiser being killed and why didn’t CPS or anyone else do anything about this..
This is just a big joke and an absolute disgrace. There’s no way in hell this is ending well
Seems to me just like the UK the CPS in USA also completely f**k up totally disgusted hopefully the law don’t mess up like it does in the UK and the monster gets a jail term.
Yep poor little Finley Boden is just 1 example of out Uk failed system.
For those not familiar with Finley Boden, please look it up.
At least David will never see be able to see his own son. Jenelle actually helped a child by calling the police on David, even though she tried to change her story at a later day. One day David’s son might thank her.
what an absolute disgrace.
I think there may be some cultural differences between U.S. viewers and those from Canada, Australia and the UK. As shitty as Janelle and David are as parents, I wasn’t expecting them to take the children. The same as Ryan, do you folks really expect Ryan to get 5 or 10 years in prison for his various shenanigans? I think this is something that needed to be said here.
There is actually plenty of evidence that can offer grounds for removal (even if temporary). The problem isn’t that they *can’t* take the kids, it’s that they *won’t* do the jobs and put in the leg work in order to accomplish that goal. Just because no one removes children when they should, does not, in ANY way mean there was no real reason based on sound proof. It simply means, as per usual, people dropped the ball.
A child can be severely beaten, abused physically and psychologically, etc… and STILL not be removed from the home. It happens all over, not just in the US either as it happens everywhere in the world. The lack of removing them is not indicative of a lack of evidence. It could simply be that someone forgot a form, someone didn’t do their job in time, someone spelled a word wrong, someone didn’t follow up, someone didn’t make a phone call (and countless other loopholes). In any case, it nearly always amounts to….people fucked up. Children are left in homes with terrible parents every single day, the world over, with and without evidence.
They could and should have taken the kids from their custody and never returned them. It’s a pipe dream and not likely to ever happen, but that IS what they should have done.
I also think they’re looking at the “bigger picture” from a “CPS standards” standpoint.
Jace has a roof over his head. Food in the house. Clothing. He was not physically assaulted to where bones were broken, he needed surgery or needed emergency medical attention.
They’ll boil this down to a “rebellious teen” and his “disciplinarian father” who’s had enough of the disrespect.
To Jaces detriment.
These ppl ALWAYS FKN WIN. ALWAYS. How many times will CPS and the law need to intervene? Once Jace hits 18, it will be Kaiser’s turn.
I guess the only good news here is that he still can’t be around David. We all know that Jenelle would choose David over Jace any day, so he won’t have to go back to the house of horrors.
I just can’t. This world is going to hell. Every fucking day you read multiple stories of parent s killing their kids. Is this the best we can do? I guess they need a dead child before they do anything.
Well that’s next and that’s horrible but it’s what’s coming bc David will murder them all b4 he would let them remove HIS KIDS!!! He views them as property
That poor boy is gonna die because COS didn’t cross their t’s and dot their I’d
The one silver lining is that no matter what happens, even if they get Jace back, that kid is going to grow up. And one day, even if it’s in ten years, Jenelle will get her comeuppance for everything she’s put him through. She says she only put Barbara through hell because she was a shitty mom… well, Jenelle is a shitty mom and guess what Jace is doing. 🤷🏼♀️ Apple, the tree is close by.
Piece of trash mother she is. Gaslighting him at the visit and loving it that this boy is going to a long term facility but her name and Dave’s has been cleared right? All is well now that she looks innocent,she’s a narcissistic and evil entitled bitcccchhh
I hope she goes fucking bankrupt and the kids grow up to go no contact with her. Then she can wallow how everyone’s so mean to her and it’s Barbara’s fault while Dkd pops her upside her shit and continues to be her biggest hater by far. I literally cannot wait till she is 40 something years old and her subscribers move on to somebody younger and prettier, and she fades into being irrelevant. I really can’t stand her and I feel the only thing that would really bother her is nobody paying fucking attention to her.
This…
This poor kid. Let down yet again. He’s doomed.
Why wont anyone help this boy?! What is wrong with CPS in North Carolina?
Jace probably tried running away from Aprils or tried lighting her house on fire too. That poor boy needs severe therapy. And My guess is dogkiller’s case will get dropped
Yes. I imagine it was something he’s done before.
He’s going to run out of relatives to stay with and soon be in the care of strangers.
Child is out of control, like every adult he’s ever encountered.
What the f*ck.
Jack didn’t stand a chance from the day he was born.
Not surprising. Jenelle, the forever victim, always gets away with everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the case against David now, or now that Jenelle has regained custody, she’ll take this opportunity to try and manipulate Jace into saying that he was lying and that David never touched him.
Sounds like she already has.
Probably the only reason she went for a visit with him to gaslight him as usual
Exactly “to control the narrative” she got out of this on a technicality and has been working overtime to look like it’s all Jaces fault. Really hate her
She didn’t regain custody she just has custody over his medical and decision-making. It’s kind of what she had before when her son was living at Barbara’s house And it was also stated that if she were to have custody of him at her house that David could not be living there. By the sound of it because of the fact that there was another incident and he had been removed out of the place he was at they had already said that Jace would end up in Juvenile Denton or a Hospital permanently because it’s getting to where he won’t be able to be placed in a foster home. Won’t be surprised if the state ends up deeming Jace unable to be placed in Foster care due to behavior problems or danger to people. It’s sad he didn’t get help.