Taken 31 years ago, son to reunite with his mom
Brampton mother told her estranged husband has been arrested in U.S.
A Brampton mother will be reunited with her child 31 years after her estranged husband vanished with their son during a court-ordered visitation.
Canadian Allan Mann was arrested Friday in Connecticut, where authorities said he and his son had lived under aliases in a quiet suburb.
U.S. federal agents said they found Allan Mann Jr. in Vernon, CT, after receiving a tip from a relative that he may be living in Connecticut under another name.
It was not immediately clear where Lyneth Mann-Lewis’s now-adult son, Jermaine, was when Mann was arrested. Officials said they notified Jermaine Mann’s mother that her son had been identified and located.
The Missing Children’s Society of Canada had been working with Mann’s mother for years, having taken on the case only several days after he went missing in 1987. The investigation had been a joint effort and over the years involved international and multi agency co-operation.
“After taking his son away from his son’s mother, this defendant is alleged to have lived a lie for the last 31 years in violation of numerous U.S. laws,” said Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham.
A joint press conference will be held on Monday at Toronto police headquarters, where members of Mann’s family, the Toronto police and the missing children’s society will be making their statements.
In 1989, Lyneth Mann-Lewis told the Star that living without her son was “sheer hell.”
“He was my only child, I felt everything for him,” said Mann-Lewis, who was only 31years-old at the time of her son’s abduction. “Not a day, not an hour, not a minute goes past that I don't think of Jermaine. This is killing me inside.”
On June 24, 1987, her husband was supposed to meet her at an Islington Ave. variety store to return Jermaine to her custody. When Mann disappeared with their son, so did any chance Mann-Lewis had at happiness, she said.
Their son, Jermaine, was just 21-months-old the last time his mother held him, and was described by Mann-Lewis as a happy little guy with big, bright, brown eyes who loved grapes, gave a glad-to-be-alive little shake when he got new shoes— and strutted to the stereo.
Allan Mann appeared briefly Friday in federal court in Hartford. The Hartford Courant reported his son, Jermaine, sobbed quietly in the front row with his head in his hands and left the courthouse without commenting. Jermaine Mann had been told his mother died decades ago.
Jermaine’s father is detained on charges including making false statements in transactions with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. It wasn’t immediately clear if he has a lawyer who could respond to the allegations.
Allan Mann, who has dual Canadian and Ghanaian citizenship, was found living under the name Hailee DeSouza in HUD-subsidized housing in Vernon, about 19 kilometres east of Hartford, federal officials said.
After running off with his 21month-old son, Allan Mann entered the U.S. — where he had relatives — and obtained fake identification for himself and his son, including bogus Texas birth certificates, officials said.
An arrest warrant affidavit prepared by a HUD special agent does not fill in the gap between 1987 and 2018. It says in August, U.S. marshals interviewed several of Allan Mann’s relatives and friends, including the family member who pointed authorities to Connecticut and his alleged alias.
Later in August, a forensic specialist from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children analyzed an old photo of Allan Mann and the 2015 photo on DeSouza’s Connecticut driver’s license and determined they were likely the same person, the warrant said.
Officials said DeSouza had lived in the Vernon housing complex since 2004. Records for DeSouza’s phones also showed he contacted Mann’s relatives, agents said.
Federal court records also show DeSouza, who is black, sued the owner of his apartment complex alleging racial discrimination. A judge dismissed the lawsuit on Oct. 15.
DeSouza described himself in the lawsuit: “I am a proud African American professional a (Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil and Complex Investigative Engineering) and is amongst over 71 per cent of unemployed African American professionals with advanced degrees who faces constant racism and against all odds determined to find work in ANY State within the union irrespective of the distant travel at my own expense as it had been for years for most over 71 per cent of unemployed African American professionals with advanced degrees.”
“This is one of those rare cases that tugs at your heart strings,” said Christina Scaringi, a special agent in charge with HUD’s Office of Inspector General. “Not only did we, working collectively, get this alleged bad actor off the street, but we played a role in reuniting an unjustly separated family.”