Opinion
Argued October 3, 2000.
October 30, 2000.
In a child custody proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 6, the father appeals from an order of the Family Court, Kings County (Grosvenor, J.), dated March 25, 1997, which, after a hearing, awarded custody of the children to the petitioner, the children's maternal grandmother, and granted him only supervised visitation.
Jeffrey C. Bluth, Brooklyn, N.Y., for appellant.
Gibson, Dunn Crutcher, LLP, New York, N.Y. (Deborah J. Verdile and Estella J. Schoen of counsel), for respondent.
Paul Siminovsky, Brooklyn, N.Y., Law Guardian for the children.
Before: THOMAS R. SULLIVAN, J.P., SONDRA MILLER, HOWARD MILLER, NANCY E. SMITH, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
This appeal involves a custody dispute between the petitioner, the children's maternal grandmother, and the respondent, the children's father. "A natural parent may not be deprived of custody of his or her child absent `surrender, abandonment, persisting neglect, unfitness or other like extraordinary circumstances'" (Matter of Carosi v. Bloom, 225 A.D.2d 692, quoting Matter of Bennett v. Jeffreys, 40 N.Y.2d 543, 544). Where extraordinary circumstances are present, the court must inquire into the bests interests of the children before making the custody determination (see, Matter of Dickson v. Lascaris, 53 N.Y.2d 204). Upon a careful review of the record, we conclude that contrary to the father's contention, there was sufficient evidence for the court to determine that there are extraordinary circumstances which required it to make an analysis of the best interests of the children (see, Matter of Bennett v. Jeffreys, supra; Matter of Carosi v. Bloom, supra; Matter of Antoinette M. v. Paul Seth G., 202 A.D.2d 429). Moreover, in light of these extraordinary circumstances, the award of custody to the petitioner was a provident exercise of discretion (see, Matter of Carosi v. Bloom, supra; Matter of Antoinette M. v. Paul Seth G., supra; Matter of Nellie R. v. Betty S., 187 A.D.2d 597, 598).