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)
33 Responses
If I lived close, I will be outside the court room with signs saying we support you Jace! Any people contributed money for this cause . I only hope these same supporters are outside the court room showing support for Jace. FU Jenelle! CPS failed this child over so many times. Get it right this time!
There’s always social media and newspaper ads to try to gather up anyone who lives near the courthouse to be there to rally for Jace. It’s just a thought, but why not go for it? That kid needs all the support he can get, especially since he has NEVER gotten any from that demon who gave birth to him. I would just love to be in the courtroom myself to watch that witch simmer at my presence as I go out of my way to make it clear that I’m there to support *her* kid. Being able to throw in the fact that I traveled all the way from Illinois *just* to do that would be the icing on the cake. 😁😁😁
Do you know Janelle?
Why would she simmer at your presence? Info, please share?!
I think what might be best is for whoever has custody of Jace going forward to be court ordered(until he gets to age 18 minimally) drug and alcohol tested regularly, as well as court mandated intensive therapy(both individual for ALL involved, as well as family therapy, AND anger management as well if Jenelle-or Barbara or God forbid David- is allowed to parent that poor child(actually what would be best is if all of the above are court mandated for parenting of ANY of Jenelle’s children). Seems they keep getting off with NO long term path towards anything healthy, it will stay toxic af until a judge finally does the right thing here. Either remove Jace & his siblings completely from this very toxic family environment, or mandate intensive long term therapy and drug/alcohol testing of all involved.
Hugs and Love for Jace, Go Andrew, Go Babs!
Seriously, everyone, think of how wonderful it would be for us to pack the courtroom with signs saying “We believe in you Jace” or something to that effect. It would be a kill two birds with one stone situation. Jace would see what it’s like when people actually *care* about you and Jenelle would be beyond livid having to sit there in her “high class courtin’ heels” having to watch it all go down. That part would be beautiful and showing Jace that there are people out there who have his back (besides Andrew and Barbara) is something that kid could really use right now. I initially made my comment about doing this as a joke, but the more and more atrocious Jenelle gets with her “mothering” of Jace the more tempted I am getting into turning my initial joke into a reality. This kid needs all the help he can get.
Jenelle has a lot of balls to talk about anyone else’s alcohol consumption. She was shitfaced drunk 24/7 and laughing about how she couldn’t remember falling down and hurting her wrist not too long ago. She posted a video about how wasted she was after spending the day drinking in the pool with the kids. She passed out and left Kaiser and Ensley on their own for who knows how long. We also haven’t forgotten how all she and UBT did at the swamp was swill Corona from morning until night (while driving the kids around). August/Daniel told us all how she was so drunk she broke his friend’s toilet when she crashed into it and she left the kids alone all the time after she moved to Las Vegas to go to hotels with him and get drunk.
I’ll send Andrew and Barb money all day every day to help get Jace away from her disgusting ass. She’s just pissed that people care about Jace and want what’s best for him and hope she slithers back to the swamp with UBT never to be seen again. I just wish there was something people could do to help Kaiser and Ensley.
Not necessarily. He could have just cut way down during the week and save it primarily for the weekend.
I’m so glad I donated to this. Eff you J & D
Anyone who has not donated, please consider donating now! Jace needs our support now more than ever!
Same same
So if Andrew didn’t put Jace on his health insurance, wouldn’t that leave Jenelle with all the bills which would cost more because they weren’t covered by insurance? Since she has custody, she would be obligated to pay as he’s a minor in her care. so if it was me, I would just let the bills rack up and leave her having to pay it.
I hope Jace can ride above all of his shitty memories and go on to live a happy and productive life. It’s not his fault he was saddled with a malignant fuck face for a mother 😢 *spits*
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.
That is a lot of money
So be it. Maybe we’ll keep donating for it.
Unfortunately, Ambie is right- Lawyers, especially good ones, are VERY expensive. Roughly, they can charge anywhere from $150-$1,000 an HOUR. I also do not think 10K will get him that far, but it’s a good start. Hopefully, he leaves the GoFundMe open so we can all keep donating to a worthy cause. Honestly, Andrew will likely (and it sounds like he plans to) give custody to Babs anyway, but even if Jace was going to him directly, I would rather him go there even if Andrew WAS drinking, where Andrew’s family would likely help out, than him being with Jenelle who also drinks and uses illicit drugs. It’s no better with Jenelle- who is abusive and also allows her disgusting abusive ex (?) husband to be around her children- including the same child David already assaulted. Babs may not be a perfect maternal figure. She may yell and the like, but she has been Jace’s only source of stability in his life and there was no way to say that Jace wouldn’t have had issues as a teen in general even if she had been perfect. I have known many teenagers with wonderful families that chose to make poor choices and got themselves into all kinds of trouble because teenagers can be impulsive, easily influenced, subject to mental illness, get involved with drinking/drugs and getting into trouble for the thrill of it.
I’m glad Jace has Andrew and his family now. His cousin and grandma seem to care a lot about him too.
Jace deserves it. He was doing so well until his bio mom went back to his abuser. She abused the situation gravely.
The monster is going to drop her so hard once she succeeded to keep Jace out of the bench to testify against the man she claimed to fear. Oh and she has proof he’s a child predator. How stupid is she?
He’s going to take her to court for custody, child support, alimony and what she still owes him. He’s gathering evidence against her.
I would love this for 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.
@Mick— he knows where Jace was, but the claims haven’t come in for the new place yet. -The Ashley
Hmm. I thought Jenelle didn’t have Andrew’s insurance info? Wasn’t she harassing his family for that? The old facility isn’t going to transfer the insurance claim to the new place — that’s an entirely different facility and they have to physically see the insurance card and verify its validity. Since Andrew doesn’t know where Jace is, he can’t produce the insurance info. And since Jenelle doesn’t have the insurance info, she can’t put Jace’s treatment on the insurance. She’s kind of screwed herself this time and I hope she ends up having to pay every dime out of her OF money.
Exactly. So maybe Jenelle had to pay up for insurance this time?
She hasn’t turned in Andrew’s insurance for the new place bc she didn’t have his info. She’s been harassing his mother and niece about it.
Exactly! He has that right. Hopefully an attorney will be able to advise him on all of this bullshit that Jenelle keeps getting away with!
My understanding is that Andrew gave the original facility his insurance info, but once Jenelle pulled him out of there and shipped him off to who knows where, she’s been harassing Andrew’s mother & family members to get the insurance information for the new place. The new place obviously doesn’t have the insurance information, so there’s no way Andrew can find out where Jace is through the insurance carrier.
I say let her pay for everything, since she wants to be a spiteful swamp twat. It’s about time she started paying consequences for the things she does.
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
Remember when David saw Dustin at the court house one morning? David was there for ” something ” court related and asked Dustin in the hall to come be his lawyer.
David it doesn’t work that way.
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.
We dont know if Andrew is clean and sober or not. Regardless, hes been able to hold down a job and has been paying child support for many years. He is Jace’s father and has been trying to work with Barbara to get Jace back in their care.
Cheers to Andrew for getting the lawyer and using the money as intended.
Holding a job with insurance and paying child support for years are pretty good indicators that the person is sober.
Not necessarily. He could have just cut way down during the week abd saved binge drinking for the weekend
This may be true but I think I’d rather Andrew have custody than Jenelle and you KNOW Jenelle drinks just as much, if not more. I would also like to say plenty of people that are active alcoholics still are able to keep their job/health insurance. It depends on when they are drinking and how dependent they are and how good they are about functioning while being active in their addiction. I am in no way bagging on Andrew at all- I would like to see him obtain custody of Jace, but holding a job with insurance and paying child support does not mean someone is sober. I say this as a recovering addict/alcoholic and an ex wife of a husband that worked, had insurance and paid child support for years while in active addiction.