Expert lawyer best bet for mom to get child back
QI was born, raised and now live and work in Singapore. A few years ago I met Sam, a U.S. citizen working here on a special visa.
Sam and I married here. I got pregnant and had a baby girl, Liu, now 9 months old. Shortly after I got pregnant, Sam lost his job. That meant he needed to leave Singapore within 12 months — unless he got another job, which he did not. He wanted me to move with Liu into his parents’ Boston home, where he was raised. I did not want to move.
I was Liu’s primary caretaker for her first six months — Sam seemed uninterested. When I went back to work, I hired a nanny for Liu. Two days ago, I came home to Sam’s note saying he took Liu to live in Boston. I learned from neighbors that Sam’s parents helped him leave with Liu. Can they get away with kidnapping? A On May 1, 2012, Singapore and the United States became “partners” to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This convention is designed to make sure disputes about child custody are decided in a court in that child’s “habitual residence” — here, Singapore.
You can file a “request for return” with Singapore’s “Central Authority.” That person will contact the United States’ “Central Authority,” who then will try — likely unsuccessfully — to get Sam to agree to return Liu to Singapore.
The better approach is to hire a Massachusetts lawyer with lots of experience in representing parents in Hague Convention kidnapping cases. Provide that lawyer with a detailed narrative containing the good, bad, ugly and the things you’d never tell anyone else about you, Sam and your relationship. Get affidavits from relatives, friends, neighbors and others who saw you or Sam or both of you caring for Liu. Those affidavits will likely report you were an excellent, caring, loving mother while Sam seemed disinterested. Get a copy of Liu’s pediatrician records if they show you — alone — brought Liu to her appointments.
Email all those documents to your Massachusetts lawyer, who will prepare a federal court petition seeking Liu’s return to Singapore. The court will issue an order that Sam bring the child to court the next morning. In the meantime, you need to get on an overnight plane to Boston so you can be there.
When Sam comes to court, the judge will probably order that passports for you, Sam, his parents and Liu be held by the clerk, that you will have temporary custody of Liu until the trial and that Sam has to pay for his supervised parenting time. Also ask that Sam pay for your housing, food, lawyer and other expenses while the case is pending.
I’d bet the judge will grant you custody and permit you and Liu to return to Singapore on condition you agree to let the civil court there decide who ends up as Liu’s primary caretaker. Wendy O. Hickey has since 1994 been involved in and since 2003 been a trial lawyer who concentrates her practice on national and international family law. Any legal advice in this column is general in nature, and does not establish a lawyer-client relationship. Send questions to dearwendy@ bostonherald.com.