US dad is cautious, hopeful of regaining custody of son in Brazil after 5-year fight

US dad hopes to regain custody of son in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO — An American father anxiously awaited word Wednesday from a Brazilian family who has been ordered to give him custody of his 9-year-old son as law enforcement authorities stood by to intercept any attempts to sneak the boy out of the country.

David Goldman won a big legal victory late Tuesday when Brazil’s chief justice upheld a lower court’s ruling that ordered his son, Sean, returned to him. The boy has lived in Brazil since Goldman’s ex-wife took him to her native country in 2004. Last year she died in childbirth.

Goldman’s lawyers were finalizing legal documents Wednesday morning and were fully expecting that the Brazilian family would turn over Sean as ordered, said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Orna Blum, who is accompanying Goldman in Rio.

“We’re hopeful that David and Sean will be reunited today,” Blum said.

There has been no word from the Brazilian family or its lawyer, however, and it is not clear if the boy is even in Rio de Janeiro.

Lawyers on both sides have said there was still a chance for the Brazilian family to appeal to Brazil’s highest appeals court, though the chances of success seemed slight.

The fact that the chief justice ruled Sean should be with his father should take the steam out of any appeal from the Brazilian stepfather, himself a lawyer from a prominent family of Rio de Janeiro attorneys, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican New Jersey congressman who traveled to Brazil to offer his support, told U.S. journalists in a teleconference late Tuesday.

Smith said law enforcement was on guard in case the Brazilian family did not transfer Sean. He said the international police agency Interpol had been notified to make sure Sean was not flown out of Brazil.

The decision by Supreme Court Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes did not specify a deadline for handing Sean over to Goldman, but Goldman’s New Jersey-based lawyer, Patricia Apy, said she interpreted the justice’s order as being effective immediately.

“When? When? When will Sean and I be able to go home, father and son?” Goldman asked in an interview aired Wednesday morning on the U.S. television network NBC.

Since he arrived in Rio a week ago — the latest of more than 10 trips in recent years during his legal fight — Goldman, of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, has said that until he is on a plane with his son heading to the U.S., he will not be convinced his battle is over.

Both the U.S. and Brazilian governments have said the matter clearly fell under the Hague Convention, which seeks to ensure that custody decisions are made by the courts in the country where a child originally lived — in this case, the United States.

A lawyer specializing in the Hague Convention said Tuesday’s decision by Mendes was the only right one to make.

“It would be virtually impossible to reconcile international law with a ruling in favor of the Brazilian family,” said Greg Lewen of the Miami-based law firm Fowler White Burnett.

He said that if the Hague Convention were not followed by the chief justice, “the State Department should immediately issue a travel advisory warning parents not to go to Brazil with their children.”

Silvana Bianchi, Sean’s maternal grandmother, wrote an open letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva just hours before the Tuesday ruling, in which she said cultural differences and international pressure were driving the case.

“Our moral foundation values the mother’s role. In the absence of the mother, the raising should be done by the grandmother,” she wrote. “That’s how it’s done in Brazil, from north to south, regardless of race, religion or social class. It’s natural that foreigners, with a different foundation, would not understand these authentically Brazilian feelings.”

Meanwhile, Goldman has said his parents and other relatives have been waiting for years to be reunited with Sean.

Silva has said he would not intervene in the case, that it was purely a matter for Brazil’s legal system.

Associated Press Writers Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel, New Jersey; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo; and AP Television News producer Flora Charner contributed to this report.