Amid the tabloids’ coverage of Sandra Bullock’s adoption of Louis, there was some news about how Jesse James’ children are faring now since their stepmom moved out of the house. While earlier reports had Sandra caring for James’ three children: his six year-old daughter, Sunny, of whom he has custody, and his two older children Jesse Jr., 12, and Chandler, 15, follow-ups stated that Sandra has probably not seen them since the split other than through Skype. US Weekly had an inset in their cover story this week stating that Sunny is being cared for by her grandmother, James’ mom, and his first wife, Karla James, with whom he has the older two children.

Now Sunny’s mom, James’ ex Janine Lindemulder, is fighting for custody after having lost an earlier custody bid in December, and being denied visitation rights beginning in February. Janine is a porn star and is married to a convicted felon who has spent time in jail for “narcotics manufacturing,” probably meth. She spent six months in federal last year for tax evasion, and was later sent to a halfway house for another six months. Now she’s out of federal custody and is trying to seize the opportunity to gain back partial custody of Sunny. With Sandra out of the picture, and Jesse exposed as a serial cheater, it just got a whole lot more promising for her. Only Janine is broke and wants Jesse to pay her legal bills. She told Life & Style late last year that she was back to working in the porn industry because “I like my job. I’m good at it. I’ve been a porn star for 23 years.” So either porn isn’t paying, she’s still working off that debt to uncle Sam, and/or she just thinks James should pay for her lawyer:

Jesse James’ porn star ex-wife has decided she wants to regain custody of their 6-year-old daughter — but she can’t afford to pay the legal costs to get the little girl back.

The woman making the claim is Janine Lindemulder — who lost custody of her daughter Sunny James to Jesse while she was serving a 6-month prison stint in 2009 for tax evasion.

Lindemulder is now a free woman and claims she’s ready to get 50-50 custody back — but she’s too broke to pay a lawyer to handle the case. So, she’s filed documents in Orange County, CA asking a judge to make Jesse spot her a cool $5,000 for legal fees.

But according to the docs, Janine doesn’t think Jesse’s gonna play ball — and expects him to fight her request for 50-50 custody.

[From TMZ]

I get why Janine is fighting for custody of her little girl, but I doubt she’s a fit mother. In court papers filed before Lindemulder went to prison, James claimed that she was sometimes so high on drugs that she would leave little Sunny alone while she slept during the day. Maybe she should aim a little lower and try for supervised visitation.

Meanwhile James is on his lame ass mea culpa tour, and we may have an explanation for why he’s publicly expressing his regret at betraying his movie star wife. Some of us are wondering if there could be a reunion for James and Bullock in the future. E! News reports that Sandra is about to make her return to the red carpet, with her first event appearance post scandal expected at the MTV Movie Awards on June 6th. It benefits Sandra’s image if her ex doesn’t seem like the cheating racist creep he’s been portrayed as in the media. Now that she’s resuming her career and putting herself out there, her people might be trying to address our questions about why she married James. Not that James’ pitiful interviews are going to put that issue to rest at all.

Note: There’s more from James’ Nightline interview, but it came out when I was writing this story. We’ll cover all that separately and hope you’re not getting burnout.