Jun 5, 2009 7:18 pm US/Eastern
Emotionally Drained Dad Returns To NJ Without Son
David Goldman Returns Home Empty-Handed After Latest Setback In Custody Battle
Tells CBS 2 HD: 'Every Moment He's There He's Being Damaged'
TINTON FALLS, N.J. (CBS) ―
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David Goldman has been fighting since 2004 to bring his son Sean home to New Jersey from Brazil.
BringSeanHome.org
It was supposed to be a joyous homecoming – a celebration at the end of a four-year international custody battle. Instead, David Goldman arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday morning alone, just days after a Brazilian judge told him to come claim his 9-year-old son before another snatched the reunion away.
An exhausted Goldman sat down with CBS 2 shortly after his return to Tinton Falls to talk about his heartache. He hadn't even unpacked his bags yet when he began to describe his emotions.
An exhausted Goldman hadn't even unpacked from his redeye flight from Brazil when he took time to chat with CBS 2.
"I'm tired, frustrated," he said. "After being down there again, I think this is the eleventh time, I probably went down there with the most hope I'd had so far."
Goldman's hopes for finally being reunited with his now 9-year-old son, Sean, were dashed when a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered a review of the case.
"Finally, all signs are pointing to Sean and I to be together, and they pull another trick from their sleeve and stop it," said Goldman.
In 2004, his wife, Bruna, left with Sean for a vacation in Brazil.
"I can see that moment as clear now as if it was yesterday. Love, hugs, kisses, to my son to my wife, to her parents," recalled Goldman.
But shortly afterward, Bruna phoned to notify him their son and she weren't coming back. She soon married another man, Joao Lins e Silva. When she died in childbirth a year ago, Lins e Silva insisted on keeping the boy as his own.
"At this point, this family, they've given a man who's got no relation to my son more legal claim of custody than me, his own father," said Goldman. "Every moment that he is there he is being damaged."
Goldman is not alone. Brazil refuses to honor a treaty it signed five years ago.
"They're in flagrant violation of the Hague Convention and the state department has found them in violation. The only country in Latin America that has a worse record than Brazil as far as returning American children is Honduras," said Bernard Aronson, former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.
In a stunning show of hypocrisy, the Lins e Silva patriarch, Paulo, condemned such actions in a recent speech about parental abductions.
He said in the speech: "In parental alienation, the custodial parent not only estranges the child from physical contact, but also from any chance of emotional connection with the other parent."
Yet, even with international law on his side, Goldman still goes into an empty bedroom, still filled with the toys and clothes of a 4-year-old, and thinks about when he will ever have his son back. The justice who ordered the review said he wants to know the will of the child, a child whom three court-appointed psychologists say has been a victim of a parental alienation campaign to turn Sean against his real father.
Meanwhile, 65 other American children abducted by a parent are being held in Brazil in violation of the Hague Convention treaty the country signed, but which refuses to honor.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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