Michael and Tasha Patterson are still fighting to be reunited with their three children, Malachi and Micah, after Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) falsely accused them of child abuse.
Four years after taking the children, despite being presented with a mountain of evidence showing the children’s injuries were the result of genetic medical conditions, the state is trying to give the twins to another couple.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Kelly, head of the Broward County State Attorney’s Office Child Fatality/Abusive Head Trauma Unit, delivered a presentation on September 22 at the Twentieth International Conference on Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma in Nashville, Tennessee.
During her talk, Kelly brought up the Patterson family and made extrajudicial statements about the pending criminal case against the couple. She played news coverage of the Pattersons’ advocacy and then said, "What is not talked about and that is clearly public record and that you did not hear at any point in time throughout this clip or one of the thousands that are out there is that there is a pending criminal case and that these are my defendants and that they are scheduled for trial.”
Kelly claimed, "...after all the genetic testing, after the complete NAT workup with our really good child abuse pediatrician that was done and completed, that dependency court trial that they're talking about took years before that even happened. So the false narrative is just being spun and packaged in this way...".
She further blamed the parents' legislative campaign for hindering her office's proposed child abuse legislation, asserting that the advocacy "really did a disservice for the past two years of fighting for this bill that I know would make a difference and instead encountered with this other bill that is just making more money for the defense experts.”
The legislation Kelly referred to is Patterson’s Law, a measure Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year. The law, named after Michael and Tasha Patterson, grants parents accused of child abuse the statutory right to obtain independent medical second opinions at their own expense and mandates that state investigators consult qualified medical specialists to evaluate preexisting health or genetic conditions before assuming abuse.
A Florida prosecutor’s extrajudicial statements could have prejudiced pending criminal proceedings. Recently, Melissa Kelly, the Florida prosecutor handling the criminal case against Michael and Tasha Patterson, spoke at a public conference in Tennessee during a breakout session and cited the case, arguing that second-opinion legislation is unnecessary and, with media assistance, creates a false narrative about medically complex children and abuse allegations. During the 40-plus-minute session, Kelly expressed frustration that defense attorneys want independent medical experts to review cases to rule out a misdiagnosis of non-accidental trauma or injury (abuse). Kelly was also concerned that state medical examiners who, in their professional judgment, rule against prosecutors on child abuse issues cost the state money that could be used to boost child abuse education and prevention. She further added that her efforts have caused medical examiners to reverse course on how they now rule on certain types of alleged abuse cases. Toward the end of the panel discussion, Kelly discussed proposed educational legislation she and her boss, the Broward state attorney, supported, which ultimately failed to pass because the legislature instead focused on “one of those second-opinion bills.” Florida affectionately calls its second-opinion legislation Patterson’s Law, named after Michael and Tasha’s family court case that sparked national debate. In that case, their medically complex children were prematurely seized and adopted out after a doctor’s medical misdiagnosis of abuse. The doctor was not certified in child abuse pediatrics at the time, and comprehensive genetic testing had not yet been completed. The same matter is now pending in criminal court. Kelly’s remarks during the session, which featured video clips of Tasha and a Florida lawmaker highlighting the importance of second-opinion legislation and the need for additional protective measures before a parent’s rights are terminated, raised ethical concerns because they could prejudice the pending criminal court proceedings. Kelly referred to the Pattersons as “my defendants… scheduled for trial.” Kelly implied that the legislation she and the Broward state attorney supported failed because lawmakers instead focused on passing Patterson’s Law. This raises the question: Is the prosecution of Michael and Tasha retaliatory? Dozens of independent medical experts across the country, including a former member of Florida’s child protection team who supports the Pattersons, have concluded that their children were not victims of abuse but are medically complex, and that, as a result, the state seeks to prosecute and imprison the factually innocent. The comment section includes excerpts from the transcript of some of Kelly’s remarks. Note: The transcript was generated via automated software and has not been fully verified for 100% accuracy against the source audio. There might be potential errors in proper nouns, homophones, and technical terminology.
— You Are The Power (@YATPOfficial) October 2, 2026
The Pattersons' 8-week-old premature twin boys, Micah and Malachi, were seized by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) in September 2022 alongside Michael's eight-year-old son, MJ. State officials removed the infants after staff at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital identified rib fractures, an alleged brain bleed, and an alleged liver laceration, immediately suspecting physical child abuse.
What began as routine medical checkups for 34-week premature twins escalated into a four-year institutional ordeal as state prosecutors pursued criminal child neglect charges while DCF expedited the termination of parental rights. You can read the full details of their story here.
Yet, the process was flawed from the beginning, according to Octavia Brown, one of the attorneys representing the family. She told Townhall that the doctor who examined the twins was “working as a child abuse pediatrician despite not having her child abuse pediatrician certification” and that she “was rendering life changing opinions about children’s injuries, despite lacking the requisite credentials and certifications.”
The couple obtained independent evaluations by over a dozen medical specialists. They concluded that the twins’ fractures and physical findings were caused by metabolic bone conditions rather than physical abuse.
Genetic testing confirmed that the twins, Tasha, and a maternal uncle carry a rare pathogenic gene mutation, along with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and neonatal rickets. These conditions severely impair bone mineralization and create vulnerabilities to injuries that resemble trauma.
Reflecting on the painful revelation of the prosecutor's public comments, Tasha Patterson told Townhall, "Hearing this recording was painful, but it finally shows why our fight has been harder. All I want is fairness for my children.”
Attorneys Brown and Valentina Villalobos served Kelly with a formal cease and desist and Evidence Preservation Notice on Wednesday, citing potential violations of Florida Bar rules concerning prejudicial pretrial publicity and demanding the preservation of all presentation recordings and communications.
“It is unfathomable to me how, when we are up to 14 doctors who have said the twins were not abused, any attorney would think they can convince a jury- beyond a reasonable doubt, that this was abuse,” Villalobos told Townhall. “It is a complete waste of taxpayer money to pursue this case at this point, which we are being told may go for as long as a month. This case was labeled as “abuse” before any genetic testing was even done, by former Broward CPT director Dr. Jamelah Tucker.”
Tasha said the prosecutor’s conduct throughout their case felt personal. She recalled how Kelly attended the adoption proceedings.
"I kept telling myself something isn’t right because it doesn’t make sense how we’re still here,” she said. “Again, now we know from this audio. It appears that it was always personal.”
The Patterson family’s ordeal, like that of many other parents across the country, reveals significant flaws in how state and local governments approach child welfare and judicial proceedings. In several instances, administrative expediency and financial incentives can override medical science.
Brown noted that “government funding to case management agencies, like the one who handled their case, is linked to the number of cases that are finalized via adoption and the race of the children; so, we must ask whether those financial incentives could influence how cases are categorized and ultimately how the cases reach legal permanency.”
Dependency cases are conducted as civil matters without jury trials or standard criminal discovery protections, which means state agencies can swiftly terminate parental rights and push adoptions forward even while criminal charges remain pending.
"We treat these cases as civil, and you do not have the same protections you get in a criminal case... You don't get juries in these cases... I don't think a jury of her peers ever would have convicted Tasha, ever,” Villalobos said.
The Patterson family set up a GoFundMe page to help with legal expenses.
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