You Are The Power’s Spike Cohen made a direct appeal to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about the case of Michael and Tasha Patterson, a Broward County couple whose newborn twins were seized by the state after doctors falsely accused them of abusing their children.
The Pattersons’ case began in 2022 when they brought their premature twins, Malachi and Micah to the hospital. Doctors discovered fractures and other injuries and immediately claimed the parents had caused them.
It was later revealed that the children had hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and metabolic bone disease, conditions that medical experts said fully explain the children’s injuries.
Yet, Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) and the court are still moving to terminate the Pattersons’ parental rights and have their children adopted by another family.
In a video titled “Man to Man,” Cohen asks DeSantis to intervene.
“Ron, you and Casey have three children, and I imagine you love them with all of your hearts,” Cohen said. “Now, I want you to think back to when they were born. Imagine if shortly after they were born, you could just tell that something was wrong with their health. But every time you take them to the doctor, they tell you that everything was okay, there was nothing to worry about, and you two were just being overly concerned.”
“But then one day, one of your kids develops a strange bruise, so you take them to the ER,” Cohen continued. “And soon after you bring them in, you are both charged with abuse, your parental rights are terminated on the spot, and all three of your kids are taken from you right then and there.”
Cohen stressed that independent doctors who examined the children after the allegations found “zero evidence of abuse,” but noted that a family court judge “refuses to allow most of that medical expert opinion and diagnosis to even be entered into evidence.”
Instead, the court sided with an ER “child abuse pediatrician” who “violated standards of care” and was not even certified in child protection.
Cohen explains that the twins’ health conditions are well documented that they “continued to get more injured under DCF care until they finally got treatment and stabilized.”
The Florida Supreme Court repeatedly refused to review the case, which prompted Cohen to appeal directly to the governor to “stop this nonsense with the stroke of a pen” and “let the Patterson kids go home to Michael and Tasha Patterson.”
The Pattersons’ ordeal began when they took their children to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida after months of constant health problems. Tasha, a nurse practitioner, told Townhall that after finding multiple injuries, including rib fractures and a liver laceration, DCF removed not only the twins but Michael’s eight-year-old son MJ.
World‑renowned metabolic bone specialist Dr. Michael Holick examined Tasha in Boston, reviewed the records, and concluded it was “most likely the twins inherited this condition” from her, while another doctor reviewing the file found evidence of metabolic bone disease, meaning the twins’ bones were “fragile” and susceptible to the very injuries DCF had decided were evidence of abuse.
Judge Stacey Schulman “refused to allow them to present this evidence” in full, allowing only limited testimony. She prohibited the couple from bringing in additional specialists even though they had concluded that the injuries resulted from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
As Cohen explained, the twins continued to suffer injuries even after DCF removed them from the Pattersons’ care and placed under state supervision, a fact Tasha says is “a clear sign” of an underlying bone condtition that DCF and the courts conveniently ignored while pressing forward with termination of parental rights.
The couple only gets weekly supervised visits. Meanwhile, the children “know who we are, but they don’t understand why they can’t leave with us,” Tasha said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with their legal fees.
The couple has been instrumental in pushing for “Patterson’s Law” in the state legislature. If passed, it would give families the right to a second medical opinion in suspected child abuse cases. In his video, Cohen urged DeSantis to put an end to this “miscarriage of justice.”
“Ron, you are the governor of Florida, and there is a family, Michael and Tasha Patterson and their children, the Patterson family, who is going through exactly this,” Cohen said. “I am asking you personally, a loving father of three, to look into their case.”
Gov. DeSantis' office could not be reached for comment.Spi
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