Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Family Law Blogs -> Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law

Family Law

: Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law

Abducted Florida Baby Dies in Panama with Father

By Janet Langjahr

Husband and Wife meet right here in Southeast Florida. Wife confides that she is an illegal immigrant.

Husband and Wife marry. Husband sponsors Wife for a green card.

Marriage breaks down.

Husband asks for postnuptial agreement. His apparent intention was that it serve as a divorce settlement.

Proposed agreement reportedly removed custody of any future child of theirs from Wife.

Wife refused to sign agreement. Husband threw Wife out of house.

Then took her back. And so on.

Child was born. Divorce began.

Wife was awarded primary residential custody of Child. Until the day Homeland Security showed up and instructed her to turn Child over to Husband despite the Court’s order.

Husband apparently put Homeland Security onto Wife, claiming to have learned of her illegal status only after the marriage.

Wife was detained for some time and threatened with deportation. Wife was eventually freed, due to Husband’s history of domestic violence.

But when Wife returned to their home, Husband and Child had vanished. Husband claimed to be in Panama with Child.

Wife had never consented to issuance of a passport to Child, so Husband’s story seemed questionable.

Wife obtained court orders requiring Husband to return Child to her custody. To no avail.

About nine months later, Wife got word that Child, now almost 2 years old, had died of pneumonia in Panama.

There were some seeming irregularities in Husband’s and the attending physician’s accounts of how Child died and the circumstances leading up to Child’s death. Wife believes Husband was negligent in caring for Child.

Wife plans to sue Husband over Child’s death. And hopes that he is prosecuted for passport fraud and parental kidnapping.

But none of that will bring Child back …

Read more in this NBC6 TV article: S. Fla. Mother Wants Answers To Baby’s Death In Panama.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on July 22, 2008 (boomark / email).