Andrew Lewis has just taken another big step to fight for his son Jace.
The Ashley can exclusively reveal that Andrew— who is the father of Jenelle Evans‘ eldest son— has hired his own attorney as of Tuesday to help him fight for his rights to Jace. According to court records obtained by The Ashley, Kathryn Cronin Johnston— an attorney based out of Wilmington, North Carolina— filed a notice of appearance on Tuesday, letting the court know she has been retained by Andrew for his custody case against Jenelle.
As The Ashley previously told you, Jenelle had kept Jace in a mental health facility for about a month (despite Andrew and Jenelle’s mom Barbara Evans wanting Jace to be released into their care). Late last month, Jenelle pulled Jace out of the facility and has taken him to an unknown location, according to Andrew.
In an interview with The Ashley last month, Andrew confirmed that Jenelle had cut him, Barbara and the rest of their families off from communicating with Jace, and that Jenelle had refused to tell anyone where Jace is currently. (Despite Andrew paying for Jace’s health insurance and Barb having mandatory visitation rights for Jace stemming from her 2023 custody agreement with Jenelle, they still do not know where Jace is.)
According to Andrew, he has been working with Barbara, who filed for a custody modification for Jace last month.
Now, though, it appears that Andrew is also fighting for his own rights to see and communicate with Jace, with whom he reunited with in 2024.
Andrew’s ability to hire his own lawyer for the case almost certainly stems from the fact that a GoFundMe he started last month to pay for Jace’s medical fees, as well as legal fees incurred while fighting for custody of Jace, raised over $10,000 in just 12 days.
On the fundraising page, Andrew wrote that, “We are reaching out today to ask for help in our battle to get Jace Evans home. We—Jace’s father and grandmother—are trying everything we can to bring him home to his grandma’s house to live but are currently facing massive medical and legal expenses to do so…
“We are currently in need of funds to help pay the enormous medical bills that have accrued due to Jace being in the facility, despite us not wanting him there to begin with. We also need help paying the legal fees it will take to battle Jace’s mother for custody.”
After Andrew’s GoFundMe went public (and donations began rolling in), Jenelle took to social media to declare that those who donated are being “scammed,” insisting that Andrew was going to use the GoFundMe money to buy himself alcohol.
“Stop sending money to him for alcohol,” Jenelle wrote on X on April 2, later writing, “You are all strangers and donating to an active alcoholic.”
As The Ashley previously reported, Barbara, Jenelle and Andrew are set to attend mediation. If the mediation is not successful, the hearing will go on as scheduled and Barbara will fight for a modification of Jace’s custody order so that she can regain custody of him.
The hearing was originally scheduled for April 13, but has been reset to May 26 for unknown reasons.
As of press time, Jenelle has not commented on Andrew hiring a lawyer, or the fact that he didn’t use the GoFundMe money to get “Drunk! Drunk!” as she claimed he would.
Stay tuned…
RELATED STORY: EXCLUSIVE! Andrew Lewis Responds to Jenelle Evans Calling His GoFundMe a “Scam”; Says No One Knows Where Jenelle Put Their Son
(Photos: Instagram; MTV; GoFundMe)
4 Responses
10,000 won’t get him far.. I’m sorry but that’s nothing in a custody battle. I paid 4000 and that didn’t even get us to mediation, they wanted 8500 just for mediation so a court case? You’re looking at 30,000 at least to even have a shot against her.
I don’t get it. Jace is on Andrew’s health insurance. Can’t he call them and say “hey, who are you paying for the care of my son”?
It’s HIS health insurance.
May this finally be the time she sees any type of legal consequences for her actions. We’ve seen her skate by and escape accountability time after time for decades now. Hoping somebody does something for those kids because CPS has failed them time and time again. I can hear Dustin, somewhere from a distant land, screaming from the mountain tops of North Carolina with glee that he doesn’t have the unfortunate job of representing Jenelle and her prized vienna sausage of a boooooooyfriend
I think this is great. Andrew is obviously clean & sober and wants what’s best for Jace. I really hope that he & Barb prevail and get him away from his “mother”. She’s doing this for control not for love. It’s all to protect her reported pedo ex. I think Jenelle needs a psych evaluation as well. Poor Jace.