A Father's Love (29 page)

“First of all, the judge has not put Sean in the position to testify,” I explained. “He already has testified. He's been heard loud and clear by three Brazilian court-appointed psychologists. This family did not like the results: that they are abusing him and that Sean was fine with coming home. They read the report, they saw us together, and they could not stand it.” I could feel the color rising in my face as I spoke passionately. “They took him upstairs and have been using him as a hostage, brainwashing him, torturing him, while the father of the man who is holding my son lectures throughout this country about how he can turn the child as an attack missile against the parent ... and how a clever lawyer can keep a child in Brazil indefinitely by filing endless motions and appeals.”

Congressman Smith added, “If the precedent is set, that nine- and eight- and seven-year-olds can be put in front of a video camera and coerced or coached into saying, ‘I want to stay in Brazil or Japan,' that precedent will lead to the kidnappers' having incredibly more power over the abducted child, because they have to go home that night.”

In another interview, when asked for my reaction, I spoke tersely but honestly. “I'm very frustrated,” I said, “that my son is still held here, in this environment, and I cannot do a thing to get him out of there. I'm not giving up; he's coming home. It's not over.”

Back in Washington, on Friday, when New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg heard the news about the most recent stay order in Brazil, as he had threatened to do, he slapped a hold on the GSP trade bill in the U.S. Senate. The bill had provided $2.75 billion in benefits to Brazil the year before, and the nation stood to receive a similar concession or more in 2010. According to the senator's office, Brazil was the fifth largest recipient of these privileges. For the first time since Bruna had ignored the court orders and the Hague Convention requirements to return Sean in 2004, the stakes for Brazil had suddenly gotten higher. Brazil now faced serious economic punishment for its recalcitrance. Moreover, Senator Lautenberg's hold not only affected Brazil; it also stalled similar concessions to more than one hundred other countries.

“You can't hold a child that belongs to an American citizen with any excuse,” Senator Lautenberg told reporters. “Just bring that boy back.”

Whether it was directly connected to Lautenberg's actions—I had no idea—but that same day in Brazil, Luis Inácio Adams, the Brazilian advocate general, a position similar to that of the attorney general in the United States, filed a “writ of mandamus” in Brazil's Supreme Court against Supreme Court justice Marco Aurelio de Mello for granting the stay order. The writ of mandamus (“we command” in Latin) essentially stood in rebuke of Aurelio de Mello, mandating that he perform his duties correctly. The advocate general asked that the stay order by Justice Aurelio de Mello be annulled. Ricardo and our legal team filed a similar writ. We could only hope that the chief justice of Brazil's Supreme Court would decide in our favor.

Ricardo also attempted to inform the Ribeiros that I was in town and that I wanted to see Sean. According to court orders, upon giving them seventy-two hours' advance notice, I was supposed to be able to see my son, but the Ribeiros never responded to Ricardo's request. It may have been just as well. As much as I wanted to see Sean, I knew the Ribeiros would pressure him to show no affection toward me and then punish him if he did. I didn't want to put him through any more “supervised” visits. I just wanted to take him home.

In one of the sickest moments of what Congressman Smith had come to refer to as “the theater of the absurd,” Tostes, the Ribeiros' attorney, appeared to hold out an olive branch to me, extending an invitation from the Ribeiros to have Christmas dinner with them and Sean. Silvana or Ray didn't call and say, “David, would you please come over for dinner and gather with us as we used to do?” No, quite the contrary; the “invitation” was delivered much the same way as a subpoena. Tostes then read the invitation during a taped interview on ABC's
Nightline
. “We want a truce. We want to bring the family together for a family reunion,” he said.

I could just imagine that scene. I pictured Tostes as a vicious cartoon caricature holding out an invitation to Christmas dinner with one hand while grasping a hatchet behind his back in the other. There was no way I was going to trust that guy.

While sequestered in the hotel room, I happened upon the ABC television interview featuring Tostes. Jeffrey Kofman, a highly professional and respectful reporter with whom I had done several brief interviews, asked Tostes, “If the courts say that Sean should be home with his father, what will you do then?”

“We have more proof,” Tostes lied, “that the man is an unfit father.”

“Oh, you have proof?”

“Of course we do!” replied the bombastic attorney. I just rolled my eyes as I listened to his lies. The man had no integrity. Apparently, to him, a statement devoid of fact could be considered true if it could be used to his advantage. I shook my head and changed the channel. Trying to respond to Tostes's absurdities would be expending energy I did not have. Nor would I stoop to his level in this fight.

 

 

THE THRONG OF television cameras, journalists, and protesters clamoring for information outside the hotel was getting increasingly boisterous. The hotel manager was concerned for the safety of the other guests, and asked me to address the crowd. “Please go down there and make some sort of statement,” he asked. “No one can even get in or out of the building.”

Ricardo cautioned me to be careful about what I said, and to watch out for any traps—questions planted by the opposition to make me look foolish or untrustworthy. I understood Ricardo's concerns, but told him I had nothing to hide and I would speak only the truth. Congressman Smith and I walked outside the Marriott's front entrance and were immediately surrounded by a mob of reporters and cameras. I was casually dressed in a golf shirt, but I looked tired and strained. It was obvious I was not on vacation. Once I got away from the Marriott's front door and out onto a walkway, I stopped and addressed the crowd.

I began by thanking them for coming. “I thank all of the Brazilian citizens who see the right of a parent and a child,” I said. “It's not a difficult thing to imagine. Sean is my family. Sean is my son. I'm his dad. Not ‘He's Brazilian,' not ‘He's American,' not ‘He's from anywhere.' He's my son.

“I'm just a dad who wants to be with his son. My son has been here; we've been separated for five years. He tragically lost his mom. He should have never been taken; we should never have been torn apart. And all of you can understand that. They're trying to paint this picture of ‘Brazil versus America,' and it is not. In a case like this, a parent could be from Istanbul or from Greece. It's not about that.

“It's about a parent's right to be with his child, and a child's right to know and be with his or her parent. And people anywhere in the world in all walks of life can understand that.”

As I was speaking, I noticed that several reporters had lowered their microphones and were simply listening. A few cameramen had done the same. Many of their faces were fraught with emotion. Several of them were crying. It was as if they finally got it. They understood.

One of the older television reporters dropped to his knees in front of me, still holding his microphone stretched out in my direction. I recognized him as one of the most esteemed television journalists in Brazil, sort of the Walter Cronkite of that country. And there he was on his knees at my feet, tears welling in his eyes.

I looked at him and spoke passionately. “You're on your knees, as I'm on my knees, begging for my son to come home, begging for justice, begging. Why is it so hard? I don't understand why ... and it's wrong and it's cruel and it's sad, and my son is suffering and is losing his innocence as a child.”

One of the reporters brought up that Sean had drawn a picture and had written that he wanted to stay in Brazil.

“How do I know that he wrote it?” I held up a postmarked but unopened card from November 16 that had been returned to me after I had sent it to Sean. “They won't even let him receive letters,” I said, showing the unopened card.

Someone asked what I hoped to gain from all this. I responded passionately, “I'm hoping to leave with my son and bring him home to his family, to enjoy Christmas, and to go play in the yard, and build a model and do the things we had once done as a father and son, and just go to a movie, and eat popcorn, and do like anyone. Anyone in Brazil, in America, in Istanbul, knows the right of a parent and a child.”

People on the street began calling out, “He's your son. He belongs with you!” Several seemed deeply moved as they called out, “Forgive us, Mr. Goldman. Forgive our country.”

The interview ran on local television and all over the country on
O Globo
. It was a turning point in the Brazilian people's understanding of my case. Prior to that time, because of the media cap on the case, the Brazilian public had been kept in the dark about why I refused to relent in my quest to be reunited with my son. The little information that was leaked to the public purposely led people to believe that the case was a legal imbroglio between Brazil and the United States, with the northern “bully” attempting to coerce Brazil to give up one of its own. Once the media cap was lifted, Brazilians were mostly influenced by the smear campaign perpetuated by the Lins e Silvas. Many people in the country received misinformation about the case, and especially about me.

Now, for the first time, Brazilians saw the human side of the story. They could identify with a father's love for his son, and they were repulsed and embarrassed by the sort of selfish manipulation and influence that wealthy, well-connected Brazilian families had exerted in their country for so long at the expense of ordinary citizens. More than a few were convinced that justice existed only for the rich and powerful in their country, and they now identified Sean and me as one more set of victims of Brazil's ruling elite.

In one article written subsequent to my impromptu press conference, an
O Globo
Web site commentator known as André Thomaz Filho said, “It's impressive how the Lins e Silva family achieved an almost unheard-of feat in this country: it united the great majority of the Brazilian population in favor of an American! Who would have thought?”

S
UNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 20, DAWNED A GORGEOUS DAY—and it got better, although, to me, the beauty of that day had nothing to do with the tropical weather. Late that day, an announcement was made by Brazil's Supreme Court that Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes would issue a ruling on Monday deciding on the appeals made by the advocate general and me. If Mendes decided in our favor, the ruling would lift the stay on the December 16 decision that Sean should be returned to me. That was great news! It meant we would not have to wait until February, when the full membership of the Brazilian Supreme Court was back in session, before getting a decision.

Upon hearing the news, Sergio Tostes temporarily took a more conciliatory tone, saying that he would like to see a negotiated settlement, piously stating that he “wanted to end the damage being done to Sean and to U.S.-Brazil relations.”

“We're raising the white flag,” Tostes told other reporters, “and saying, ‘Let's get together; let's talk. We're the adults; we have responsibilities, so let's start to have a constructive conversation.'” In almost the same breath, he then suggested that he preferred to negotiate with Bernard Aronson because of his diplomatic experience, as though Tostes were Bernie's Brazilian counterpart. It was just another diversion; Bernie and I rejected the idea out of hand.

Though I remained calm publicly, the Ribeiro attorney's audacious propensity for twisting the truth irritated me. There was nothing to negotiate. When a reporter asked me about the Tostes proposal, I answered straightforwardly, “This isn't about shared custody. I'm Sean's dad; I'm his only father and his only parent. This isn't a custody case—it's an abduction case.”

Another reporter asked me whether the Brazilian family would be able to visit the boy if Sean and I were reunited. It was a seminal moment, but I had already answered that question in my heart. “I will not do to them what they have done to Sean and me.”

 

 

MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, was one of the longest days of my life. Outside, people were in a festive mood as they prepared for Christmas week in Brazil. Inside the Marriott, I stayed holed up in my room, hopeful that Judge Gilmar Mendes would issue a decision in my favor—lifting the stay and releasing Sean to go back to the United States with me.

Earlier that morning, Ricardo and one of his partners, Marcos Ortiz, had come to Rio from their office in São Paulo, while their third partner, Paulo Roberto Andrade, stayed in Brasília keeping watch at the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Mendes was said to be readying a decision.

Sometimes when I thought about how young and inexperienced Ricardo and his team were, and that Sean's fate and mine were in their hands, I shuddered. At one point, in 2008, when the case had stalled and nothing was happening, Ricardo and I agreed to seek out more influential attorneys. We checked with six major law firms in Rio. One legal team could not take the case because it claimed prior knowledge through another party. All five of the other law firms refused to go up against the Lins e Silva family. So Ricardo had handled the case thus far all on his own, with Tricia Apy's help in New Jersey.

Representing the Ribeiros was Sergio Tostes, whose partner was the former president of the Tribunal of Justice. Their firm employed sixty-five lawyers and represented some of Brazil's biggest names. The Lins e Silvas themselves boasted that they had fought more than one thousand family law cases.