An emotional, cross-country custody legal battle ended Monday with an agreement allowing an Orange County woman to keep her foster daughter.
Stacey Doss, of Rancho Santa Margarita, has been fighting for custody of her foster daughter Vanessa, who she's raised since the girl's birth, WDTN-TV in Dayton, Ohio, reported.
Benjamin Mills, the 2-year-old's biological father, claimed Vanessa was put up for adoption without his consent.
"I won legal custody of Vanessa today, but the details of the visitation have not been completely worked out yet, and nothing has been signed -- just entered into court proceedings. We have not removed ourselves from the California Appeal Court process yet until everything is signed," Doss told NBC LA on Monday.
As part of the ruling, Mills' mother will have visitation rights with Vanessa, the Associated Press reported.
"Part of the agreement is to offer some visitation, very limited at first, to the paternal grandmother with the goal of trying to have some visitation and letting the child know about her family here, and especially her siblings who are here in Dayton," Montgomery County prosecutor Mathias Heck Jr. told the AP.
Heck says Mills will be allowed to attend visitations if they're in a public place and occur during the day, the AP reported.
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"Winning custody is of course wonderful, but I still have concerns about Vanessa's safety and well-being, both physically, and definitely emotionally, for obvious reasons. We will be working with a therapist so that this new information is given to Vanessa in a way that she can comprehend it, and in the appropriate timeframe. I hope that all parties have her best interest in mind and proceed in a way that is best for her. As her mother, I will continue to fight for that," Doss said.
The story started in June 2008, when Andrea Conley gave up her daughter, Vanessa, for adoption shortly after giving birth in Dayton, Ohio. She chose Doss to be her adoptive mother, through a California-based adoption law firm.
After Vanessa was born, Conley signed a document under penalty of perjury stating she didn't know whom the birth father was. Doss said Conley told her Vanessa was conceived during a one-night stand.
But the birth mother wasn't telling the truth. Several days after taking custody of Vanessa, Doss learned that Mills had shown up at the hospital looking for his baby girl. Four months later, DNA tests proved that Vanessa was indeed his daughter.
"For most people, it is difficult to imagine anything more painful to a father than having their child offered up for adoption in a distant state without his knowledge or consent. This is exactly what happened in this case," Mills attorney, Elizabeth Gorman, said last year in a statement to NBC LA.
Mills and Conley have had a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship that spanned several years and two other children, both daughters. Mills had been convicted of multiple domestic violence charges, the most recent in 2005, when he served prison time for beating Conley.
