Some Good News in Cross-Continental Custody Battle
Remember David Goldman, the Jersey dad whose wife up and moved to Brazil, cutting him off without a chance to see their four-year-old son? The story got us all ferklempt, not to mention righteously indignant on Dad’s behalf when it came to light on the Today Show last fall.
Put down your pitchforks parents! Four years after his wife took off, divorced him, remarried and died, Goldman finally got to see his son this week.
It’s a two tissue box tale if there ever was one. Goldman bid son Sean and wife Bruna goodbye at Newark International Airport in June 2004. He thought they were simply going to visit Bruna’s family in her native Brazil, and they’d be home in due time.
Then he got word from Bruna that she wasn’t coming back. Oh, and by the way, she wanted a divorce. Court battles ensued, but Goldman couldn’t get past the Brazilian roadblocks, and his wife had remarried a “well-connected” Brazilian attorney who was helping her every step of the way. Then came word that Bruna had died during childbirth in August 2008. David Goldman thought he finally had a chance at his son; only to hear that the attorney was filing for a name change to take Goldman’s off of Sean’s birth certificate.
When the story became public, politicians from the U.S. stepped in to help. New Jersey Congressman U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, traveled to Brazil this week with Goldman, securing visitation for father and son while he put pressure on the Brazilian government, warning them that they are violating the Hague Convention, an international adoption treaty.
It’s not over yet, but can you imagine having been the fly on the wall for that meeting between father and son? We’d be talking a three-tissue-box story then.
Now Goldman’s supporters are looking for letters to be sent to Congressmen who will help co-sponsor a bill – along with Smith – to call for Brazil to conform under the Hague Convention rules and send Sean (and American citizen) home with his father to the states. Get a look at the bill and a list of congressmen here.
Image: Bring Sean Home.org
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Brazil Feels Emboldened to Allow this Kidnapping of an American Citizen because We here in America Trashed the Rights of Fathers! Fathers And Children Need to have our Rights Secured! Right here in The United States is where we must Secure our Rights as Dads! Deadbeats are called Deadbeats due to more than anything else the corruption in Domestic Law! Brazil Feels Emboldened to Allow this Kidnapping of an American Citizen because We here in America Trashed the Rights of Fathers!
Wow, I hope it all works out the way it should. I’m sure this has been awful for both father and son.