My name is Scott McKenna. I am a father, a dad, a “daddy”, a United States Air Force veteran, and a private investigator with approximately thirty years of professional experience. I have also served my community as a Guardian ad Litem volunteer and through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

     I am writing to ask the public - parents, grandparents, veterans, professionals, advocates, and concerned citizens - to stand with me and help advance the below Florida family-court reform proposals. I am asking you to read my story, share this information, and contact your local state legislators to ask them to sponsor, support, and advance these reforms. These proposals are not theoretical to me. They were developed from the devastating experience of watching Florida's legal system remove people / me from the lives of my two young children while serious accusations, disputed evidence, procedural barriers, financial inequality, and prolonged court delays went largely uncorrected.

     On August 19, 2026, my little girl will turn eight years old and my little boy will turn five. I have not seen, spoken to, hugged, called, or otherwise communicated with either of them for over 9 months. They live only a few miles away from me.

     More than nine months have now passed; the length of an entire pregnancy, without any contact between my children and their “daddy”. We have lost Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Father’s Day, birthdays, school milestones, holidays, ordinary mornings, bedtime conversations, and thousands of everyday moments that can never be recreated. Unless something changes, I may also be prevented from seeing them on their shared birthday.

     Before this separation, I was not a distant or occasional parent. I was a hands-on father with substantial parenting time. I handled mornings, meals, bathing, bedtime routines, school transportation, medical appointments, errands, activities, and much of my son’s daytime care. I regularly chaperoned school activities and was actively involved in the children’s education, healthcare, therapy, and daily lives. I was Mr. Mom.  For much of the nearly three-year divorce litigation, I exercised approximately equal parenting time.

     Then, through a succession of false accusations, false police reporting, motions filled with flat out lies and false allegations, temporary restrictions, civil injunction proceedings, emergency motions, false arrests, and court orders, my children and I progressively lost one another.

The allegations and resulting trauma

     Beginning in November 2022, I was accused at different points of stalking, domestic violence, battery, sexually abusing or molesting my daughter, and raping my former wife. I unequivocally deny every single one of those accusations.

     I am not asking you to accept my denial merely because I state it in this letter. I have preserved police reports, deposition and trial testimony, hearing transcripts, recordings, body-camera evidence, communications, medical evidence, witness testimony, security footage, toll records, and other documentation that materially contradicts all of these false allegations.

     Some of the most serious accusations, including allegations of rape and child sexual abuse, did not result in criminal charges or a verified adverse finding by law enforcement. Nevertheless, once the accusations entered the family-court case, they acquired a life of their own. Allegations that were repeatedly used to justify restrictions on my relationship with my children.

     An initial ex parte domestic-violence proceeding in November 2022 caused a 42-day period without contact with my children. During the litigation, I was arrested twice and detained in front of my sons daycare by approximately 6 police officers hands on their guns; and spent approximately three nights in jail in connection with alleged violations and incidents that I continue to dispute. False and misleading reports were made,  important context and exculpatory evidence were omitted, and certain accusations changed materially over time.

     A second domestic-violence injunction arose from an impossible and disputed hospital incident in April 2024. The medical and witness evidence surrounding that incident was contested. A civil injunction was nevertheless entered against me. That injunction and the allegations associated with it affected my parenting rights, professional reputation, ability to possess firearms for work, financial stability, and standing in the community.

     At trial in 2025, I faced still more extreme allegations, including an allegation that I had raped my former wife; an accusation was and is false and that had not previously been presented as a criminal complaint resulting in charges. Being publicly branded as a rapist, child molester, batterer, stalker, and dangerous father has been psychologically devastating.

     These accusations did not merely damage my reputation. They changed how the legal system viewed every action I took. Attempts to remain involved with my children were characterized as manipulation or control. Efforts to dispute accusations were treated as an inability to accept responsibility. Efforts to document events were characterized as surveillance. Once the court adopted a negative view of me, evidence that did not fit that view seemed to receive little meaningful consideration.

Loss of the children despite efforts to comply

     The November 3, 2025 Final Judgment restricted me to professionally supervised time-sharing and imposed a seven-day provision concerning identification of a supervisor. I located a court-approved professional provider, completed the intake process, paid the required fees, provided documentation, coordinated potential scheduling, and attempted repeatedly to begin supervised visits.

     Despite those efforts, no visits occurred. The other parent did not complete the process necessary for the provider to begin the visits, and the seven-day language became a procedural barrier used to prevent any contact. Since November 2025, I have repeatedly contacted counsel, filed motions, proposed supervised contact, requested enforcement, and sought an earlier hearing.

     My children and I have now lost more than nine months together, not because I refused to comply with supervision, and not because I disappeared, abandoned them, or stopped trying. We remain separated while procedural disputes continue and meaningful hearing time remains months away.

     This is precisely why “temporary” restrictions can become permanent in practice. Every day that passes changes a young child’s relationship with a parent. By the time appellate review or a final hearing occurs, the prolonged separation itself can be cited as the child’s new status quo.

Concerns regarding impartiality and the appearance of influence

     My case also presented circumstances that, at minimum, created a serious appearance-of-impropriety concern.

    My former wife’s brother is RJ Scaringe, the founder and chief executive officer of Rivian Automotive. Her stepmother is Florida State Senator Debbie Mayfield. My former wife is herself a double board-certified psychiatrist.

     At one of the first proceedings in December 2022, the presiding judge, Judge Evan Frayman, appeared to recognize my former wife’s family connection and referred to her brother as “RJ.” Judge Frayman’s actual words were “That’s RJ Scaringe’s sister?” Judge Frayman also owned/owns a Rivian vehicle.

     I understand that owning a Rivian is not evidence of misconduct and does not, by itself, prove bias. Nor do I have direct evidence that RJ Scaringe or Senator Mayfield personally contacted the court or intervened in the case. I do not want to overstate what the evidence establishes.

     The concern is the appearance created when a judge demonstrates apparent familiarity with a party’s extraordinarily wealthy and politically connected family at the outset of litigation, yet no meaningful disclosure or inquiry occurs. That concern becomes more serious when the less-connected party later experiences repeated adverse rulings, extraordinary character findings, severe restrictions on parental contact, and difficulty obtaining timely review.

     I repeatedly raised concerns about Judge Frayman’s treatment of the evidence and the language directed toward me. The Final Judgment described me with such terms as a “simple con artist,” “master manipulator,” and “dissembler.” I filed a complaint with the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission on December 7, 2025. I understand that the complaint remains pending or under review. Judge Frayman no longer presides over my case, which has been assigned to a successor judge.

     I am not asking the Legislature to determine whether political or financial influence actually occurred. I am asking lawmakers to recognize that family courts need stronger transparency, disclosure, recordkeeping, written-finding, and review safeguards so litigants are not forced to rely solely upon trust when circumstances create a reasonable appearance of partiality.

The personal cost

     The consequences have affected every part of my life.

     I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and remain in therapy. Since 2022, I have attended therapy sessions, generally on a biweekly basis. I have experienced anxiety, depression, grief, nightmares, sleep disturbance, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, impaired daily functioning, physical manifestations of stress, and periods of severe emotional distress.

     I have lost my relationship with my children, my home, my office, all of my business, my savings, my professional reputation, and important employment opportunities. I have incurred extraordinary legal expenses and ultimately faced bankruptcy. I lost my business in 2024 and have submitted hundreds of job applications while attempting to rebuild my life. The domestic-violence findings have also impaired my ability to possess firearms, which directly affects work I have performed during my career as a private investigator, security consultant, and process server.

     No parent should have to be wealthy, politically connected, or represented by a large legal team to receive timely hearings, meaningful review, and an evidence-based decision. No child should lose months or years with a fit and willing parent merely because temporary restrictions are easier to impose than they are to reverse.

What I am asking the public to do

     I understand that members of the public and legislators cannot direct a judge, reverse an individual court order, or decide a pending case. I am not asking anyone to interfere with the judiciary or demand a particular result in my case. I am asking you to help ensure that the systemic problems exposed by my experience receive meaningful legislative attention.

I am respectfully asking you to:

• Review the ten proposals below and the problems they are intended to address;
• Contact your local Florida House Representative and State Senator. If you live outside      Florida, contact your own state legislators and ask them to review these reforms;
• Use and  personalize the enclosed constituent letters to ask your legislators to request assistance from legislative bill-drafting staff and convert the proposals into formal legislation;
• Ask your legislators to sponsor, co-sponsor, or publicly support the resulting bills and refer them to the appropriate House and Senate committees for hearings and stakeholder input;
• Request a  written response or meeting from your legislators, and ask them to meet  with me - or have a member of their staff meet with me - so I can present the supporting chronology and documentation; and
• Share this  letter  with other parents, grandparents, veterans, advocates, professionals, journalists, and concerned citizens, and urge them to support meaningful safeguards for timely review, written findings, judicial transparency, equal access, restoration of lost parenting time,      and accountability for proven interference with parent-child relationships.

     My case may be unusually complicated, but the underlying problem is not unique. Across Florida, across the USA, and globally children are separated from parents through temporary orders, unresolved allegations, litigation tactics, financial inequality, and delays that consume irreplaceable portions of childhood. Even when accusations are ultimately unsubstantiated or restrictions are later modified, the law cannot return the birthdays, holidays, school years, bedtime stories, and ordinary moments that were lost.

My daughter will not be eight forever. My son will not be five forever. They deserve a legal system that understands that childhood time is not an abstract legal interest. It is their life.

     Please help ensure that what happened to my children and me becomes a reason for reform rather than merely another family's private tragedy. With your voice, your outreach to legislators, and our collective persistence, we can make a difference.

     Please send below constituent letters to your local legislators, request a written response, and ask them to review the proposals with their legislative staff. I would also be grateful for an opportunity to speak with concerned members of the public, advocacy organizations, legislators, or legislative staff. I am prepared to provide the relevant court orders, transcripts, police reports, recordings, correspondence, medical and witness evidence, procedural history, and other supporting documentation for independent review.

     Thank you for reading my story, for caring about Florida's children and families, and for considering these important reforms. With your help, private pain can become public action and meaningful change.