Shortly before Levi Johnston‘s (disappointing) Playgirl photos came out last November, Bristol Palin quietly filed for sole custody of their son Tripp Johnston-Palin. According to a new report out today, Palin‘s bid was kept private (ie. quiet) at Sarah Palin‘s insistence. Levi Johnston, who claims that he feels “unsafe” in any private proceedings having to do with Sarah Palin, has forced the issue to become public. Here are the deets as reported by the Alaska Dispatch:

The custody battle between Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin became public last week when two Superior Court judges issued orders unsealing the court record and denying the use of pseudonyms to protect the feuding parents’ identities. A Dec. 23 order from Judge Kari C. Kristiansen denied Palin’s motion to close the proceedings and opened the case file to public access, while an order issued the same day by Presiding Judge Sharon Gleason denied Palin’s request to use John and Jane Doe in place of Johnston’s and her own real names. On Nov. 4, Palin filed for sole custody of Tripp Johnston-Palin, the former couple’s son, who celebrates his first birthday today. Kristiansen initially issued temporary orders limiting access to the case file and allowing the parties to file under pseudonyms. Johnston wasn’t playing along, however. In an opposition to Palin’s motion for a gag order, Johnston’s attorney, Rex Butler, said: “Simply put, this matter is public in nature, the courts are not refuges for the scions of the elite to obtain private dispensation of their legal matters because the public at large has an interest in the proceedings.” There’s another factor in the mix, of course: Palin’s mother, former governor Sarah Palin, with whom Johnston has repeatedly locked horns in the press, and from whom he claims to fear retaliation. “I do not feel protected against Sarah Palin in a closed proceeding,” Johnston said in an affidavit accompanying Butler’s filings. “I hope that if it is open she will stay out of it. … I think a public case might go a long way in reducing Sarah Palin’s instinct to attack and allow the real parties in this litigation, Bristol and I, to work things out a lot more peacefully than we could if there is any more meddling from Sarah Palin.” Johnston’s affidavit did not disclose exactly what “meddling,” if any, the former governor has engaged in during the custody case’s brief lifetime; however, he theorized that the closed proceedings might be intended to conceal some “fairly aggressive” tactics.

None of this should be surprising in the least. Levi Johnston posed semi-nekkid in a nudie mag so it would make sense that Bristol Palin (with coaching from her family, I’d wager) would use the opportunity to go after sole-custody. None of this has any bearing on what the outcome of this suit will be tho. It will be up to a ruling judge to determine if Bristol‘s suit has merit … but my guess is that she will not win sole custody based on just the Playgirl photos. We will have to see what evidence and arguments are made on the matter … but IMHO just because Levi Johnston doesn’t appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed, it doesn’t mean that he is not fit to share custody of his only begotten son.

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