Consider Mindy McCready's Custody Case Open for Business

Troubled country singer feels "optimistic" she'll be reunited with her son soon

By Natalie Finn, Lindsay Miller May 19, 2010 10:19 PMTags
Mindy McCreadyRandi Radcliff/AdMedia/Sipa Press

Mindy McCready's show is on the road.

A judge agreed Wednesday to reopen custody proceedings concerning her 4-year-old son, who has been in the care of McCready's mom, Gayle Inge, since 2007.

"We have progressed in a manner to reunite me and my son, Zander," the "Guys Do It All the Time" singer tells E! News. "I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."

It probably can't happen soon enough for the country songstress, who's been through more downs than ups lately.

McCready wasn't granted unsupervised and overnight visits with the toddler yet, but Judge James Seals did approve supervised meetings until her next court date.

"Most of what we had anticipated occurred," McCready's attorney, James Moon, of the firm Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer told E! shortly after the hearing in Fort Myers, Fla., where Zander lives with his grandma.

"The judge reopened the file to allow her to reunify with Zander. We will have a case-management conference hearing no later than 45 days from now to determine which direction we're going to go."

They hope that the judge will grant McCready alone-time with her son then, Moon said.

"One of the difficulties we have is that visits are subject to the approval of the guardian of Zander," the lawyer told E!. "And there are some issues between [McCready] and her mother, as I'm sure you're aware, and today in court we made a very strong effort to let everyone know that Mindy's moved past those issues and is saying, ‘Here's an olive branch, work with me.' She's saying, ‘Let me see him as much as I can, and let's work things out between us.'"

McCready was jailed in 2007 for violating probation after allegedly assaulting her mom at her Florida home. A subsequent drug overdose prompted a trip to rehab the following July and a suicide attempt in December 2008 landed her in a psych ward for evaluation.

"She was disappointed because she didn't get unsupervised visits but I think she was particularly upbeat that her case was reopened," Moon said. "She knows what she needs to do and she's been doing it for some time now. It's a positive step."

As Moon expected, Zander's father, Billy McKnight, and his lawyer were also in court today to file their own petition to reopen the custody case.

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We doubt any of these Famous Families want to be apart from each other, either.