This morning I was reading my morning papers, drinking coffee and watching the morning news (while also wrestling with my 2-year old…yeah, I’m a mean multi-tasker) when my heartstrings were tugged by the tale of David Goldman and his battle for his son on the Today Show.
In a nutshell, the story goes a little something like this, four years ago, his wife and his 4-year old son embarked on a 2-week vacation to Brazil where David’s wife and mother of his child Sean was from. Once they landed, she called David and told him she wasn’t coming back, ever. He attempted to obtain a custody heading, which according to the Hague Treaties, his son would have to return to the states to attend. But the Brazilian courts were late in responding and in turn the New Jersey courts ruled that too much time had past and that Sean should just stay with his mom in Brazil.
His wife remarried, to a “well-connected” Brazilian lawyer and last month she died in childbirth. Naturally, David assumed that since his wife deceased, that he would then get his son back. But it turns out the new husband had filed a petition to have David’s name struck from Sean’s birth certificate and replaced with his own. Which would, as David said “exclude me from ever even being my son’s father…So far, the Brazilian judicial system is letting him do this.” The boy is a US citizen and the question is how could a man that has no blood relation to him, claim sole guardian when his real father is ready, willing and able to raise his own son. To find out more about David’s plight you can check out the site here.
(source and photo from MSNBC)
