A Father's Love (17 page)

“Tell them to forget it,” I said. “I'm not coming down.” Ricardo had warned me that the strange men at the front desk might be trying to serve me papers for a trumped-up court case. Indeed, the Lins e Silvas were now filing lawsuits against me! It was insanity, but Ricardo assured me that they were serious, that they were trying to intimidate me because they knew the law was not on their side. To me, it certainly appeared that the Brazilian courts were on their side. With my not being able to see Sean, it was as though the courts were thumbing their noses at me, saying, “Mr. Lins e Silva has been raising the boy. He is the father figure. You? You don't matter.” It made no sense. Even some Brazilian government representatives were now beginning to encourage the courts to send Sean home. One had to wonder how the Lins e Silvas possessed such powerful clout with the courts. But they and the Ribeiros were people of means and political influence, so they felt that they were above the law; they had an enormous sense of entitlement. They were somebodies, and I was a speck of lint, an irritant to be brushed off.

I also wondered why João Paulo Lins e Silva would fight so ferociously to keep Sean in Brazil, especially now that he had his own daughter to care for. Surely he must have considered how he might have felt if his child had been abducted. Although it was sheer speculation, and I may never have incontrovertible proof, the obvious answer was that he had a vested interest in keeping Sean, since he and his family might well have been part and parcel of the planned abduction from the beginning. Moreover, we later discovered, by João Paulo Lins e Silva's own admission, that he had met Bruna on at least two other occasions prior to her leaving the United States with Sean in June 2004. In a rambling, error-filled letter to the National Council of Children and Adolescent Rights, Lins e Silva wrote that he and Bruna had commiserated about their “unhappy marriages” prior to her abduction of Sean.

In the days following the intentional interference with Sean's and my visitation, J. P. Lins e Silva petitioned the federal court, attempting to justify his absence by saying that he did not know the visitation was to take place on Saturday morning until I arrived to visit Sean. Of course, that was ludicrous, since he had been served papers to that effect and even had appealed the decision after I had arrived in Brazil on the very evening my visit with Sean was to take place! In his explanation to the court, he then tried to shift the blame for his actions onto me. He contended that it was actually a good thing that Sean had not been there, because I had shown up with “more than ten journalists, reporters, and TV cameras.” He claimed that pedestrians in the area thought somebody was shooting a soap opera since there were so many cameras and crew members. This, said Lins e Silva, was grounds for my visitation to be revoked, based on the previous stipulation that prohibited Sean from being seen with me in public.

His explanation was sheer lunacy! Especially when the federal court called the court officials who had accompanied us on the visitation day to testify, and they both confirmed that there was not a single camera (other than mine), not a single journalist or a reporter with me that Saturday morning.

João Paulo Lins e Silva was chastised by the federal court for “malicious intent and an act offensive to the dignity of justice” for his deliberate attempt to alter the veracity of the facts. He was to be “investigated” to discover whether the crime of disobeying a court order had been committed.

I could have answered that one for them.

Lins e Silva got a slap on the wrist and was still permitted to practice law in Brazil. Talk about impunity. Clearly, he and Bruna's parents were trying to break me emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually, but it was not going to work. Never!

 

 

AFTER MY FAILED attempt to see Sean in Brazil, the NBC representatives flew back home. I was alone in my hotel room late at night when someone knocked on the door. I got out of bed, went to the door, and looked out the peephole. I realized the person outside was someone trying to serve me with legal papers. I refused to open the door.

The person trying to serve me with the lawsuit continued to harass me throughout my stay. I called Ricardo and he said to accept the papers. When I was finally served, on October 24, 2008, I was appalled to see that the Lins e Silvas were suing
me
in Brazilian court for defamation of character and libel! (You can't make this stuff up!) They claimed that by going public with the story, I was disparaging their good name.

It was late at night, but I called Mark DeAngelis and told him about the suit. He went ballistic. The following morning, he called the U.S. embassy in Brazil and reached Ambassador Sobel's assistant. Nobody there knew anything about the Lins e Silvas' legal threats. “Do you realize these people are trying to intimidate David in his hotel room, serving him with lawsuits?” Mark asked.

“No, we are unaware of anything like that.”

“We're worried about his safety,” Mark continued to rail. We had heard stories of others who had met with unfortunate fates when they bucked the Brazilian legal system. “You need to protect this guy. He is at risk down there.”

The Lins e Silva family was formally accusing me in the lawsuit of hiring a helicopter to harass the family by flying over their property. It was ridiculous. I was scrimping and saving every penny I earned, trying to keep up with the legal bills, translation fees, and the travel back and forth to Brazil for weeks at a time. I could barely afford a plane ticket to go down there, much less pay to hire a helicopter to harass the family holding Sean illegally.

I remained ensconced in my hotel room, not really knowing for sure if I was in any danger. After a few more days of the absurdity, I realized this was another failed trip that was exhausting my emotional and financial resources. After discussing my options with Ricardo and with Tricia Apy, I booked a flight back home—once again leaving without Sean.

 

 

NOT ONLY DID the Lins e Silvas file charges against me for slander, and for founding the Bring Sean Home Web site, but they even sued me on behalf of Sean's half-sister, Lins e Silva's daughter, demanding money from me in their lawsuits. This was ironic, since one of the Ribeiros' and Lins e Silvas' smear tactics claimed that I really didn't care about Sean, that I had abandoned him, that I had never tried to be with him until after Bruna passed away, that my “real motive” was money. Attempting to prove their assertion, they pointed to the $150,000 settlement of the litigation against the Ribeiros for damages related to their involvement in the abduction.

After the New Jersey court had entered final orders for custody and monetary sanctions against Bruna for her continuing kidnapping of Sean, the damages case against the Ribeiros remained pending. The Ribeiros continued to argue it was all Bruna's idea, that they had no advance knowledge of the abduction and could do nothing to stop it. They stated their support of Bruna was simply the act of loving parents. The Honorable Paul Kapalko of the Superior Court of New Jersey disagreed, and ordered that the case for damages proceed. In December 2006, on the day the case against Bruna's parents was to go to trial, their lawyers approached mine with offers of settlement and promises of negotiating the conditions under which Bruna could return, and we could address issues of custody and divorce. My attorney worked for days on forms of orders to facilitate access with Sean. While eventually Bruna refused to agree to any access arrangements, the Ribeiros, still admitting no wrongdoing or collusion in Bruna's abduction of Sean, offered to pay me $150,000 in return for dropping their names from my civil suit and allowing them access to their assets in New Jersey, which had been frozen since August 2004 because of their involvement in the illegal removal and retention of Sean.

I was willing to have the Ribeiros sworn in and to have them testify under oath. Finally, some justice might be served. When I received word of their last-minute settlement offer, my first response was “Absolutely not! I don't want their money. If we take their deal, they will walk away free and clear. They'll sell their condo and we will have no leverage.”

Tricia agreed, but pointed out that a trial, and the inevitable appeals that would follow, could take several years and would leave an aspect of the New Jersey case still unfinsihed, which could be exploited in the Brazilian case. The only reason we had initially frozen the assets was to encourage Bruna and her family to see the consequences of their illegal behavior and bring Sean home. Any money awarded would have been long since spent on the costs of the trial, and I was already deeply in debt. She basically advised me, “Take the settlement; it will cover some of the costs you have incurred, and we can keep fighting to get Sean home.” No part of the settlement absolved anyone of the responsibility to comply with the orders of the courts of New Jersey or released Bruna from paying the financial judgments that had already been entered against her.

Frankly, had I not accepted the settlement, I would not have had the resources to pay my attorneys, and I would have lost my battle for Sean's return by default, because the Ribeiros and the Lins e Silvas could far outspend me. As much as I was reluctant to do so, I accepted their settlement offer.

With Bruna's parents' names dropped from the case, they could get their money out of the New Jersey bank and could legally sell their beachfront condo, valued at approximately $500,000, which they promptly did. The money I received from them went directly to my attorneys, to help defray the skyrocketing legal bills I was racking up because of theirs and Lins e Silva's actions in stonewalling Sean's return. Now they had the audacity to give the impression that by accepting that settlement I was trying to get money out of them. The settlement did not affect my legal case against Bruna. Nor did it exonerate her actions in abducting our son. It also did nothing to affect the stipulations of the Hague Convention demanding that Bruna return Sean to the United States.

Ricardo summarized point by point the sad state of affairs in a letter that proved Lins e Silva's error-filled claims wrong: “The truth about that agreement: it was an act by which the financially superior party used its economic power to exclude itself from a lawsuit, considering that the financially weaker party needed resources to keep fighting for a greater cause.”

For the Lins e Silvas to accuse me of pressing this case for the sake of money rather than my love for Sean was both ludicrous and insulting. For them to file charges against me, demanding that I pay them damages for their sullied name, was beyond the pale.

Yet the court in Brazil entertained the charges, forcing me to incur still more expenses to defend myself against them. Listening to the Brazilian prosecutor describe the charges against me—that I had hired a helicopter to harass and stalk the kidnappers' families by hazing their homes—I got the impression that even the prosecutor was somewhat embarrassed to make the case. When he asked me about the helicopter, I answered truthfully, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” The case dragged on for months, and eventually was dismissed.

 

 

FOLLOWING MY APPEARANCE on
Today
and my return trip to Brazil, Mark succeeded in stepping up our media campaign. He booked me for interviews with Dr. Phil McGraw and Greta Van Susteren, and orchestrated a letter to then senator Barack Obama, who was in the heat of a campaign himself, running for the presidency. Apparently somebody in the Obama campaign took the time to check out my story, because Senator Obama wrote back, “The United States is working to pursue Sean's return under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.” It was similar to the responses I had received from New Jersey senators Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, and congressmen Rush Holt and Frank Pallone. But would any of them be effective? At that time, I could never have imagined that the future president of the United States might one day play a role in helping to bring Sean home.

One of the truly special media connections we made was with Bill Handelman, a kindly gentleman and journalist for the
Asbury Park Press,
one of the more popular local newspapers on the New Jersey coast. A former sportswriter, Bill was a bright guy with a big heart. The story of Sean's abduction touched him deeply, and after a front-page story on Sean and me, Bill was first in line when I had news of any kind to present to the public. When Bill first interviewed me at my house, he was already fighting a losing battle with kidney cancer. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to tell the story of Sean's kidnapping and the subsequent miscarriages of justice we endured. Bill and I talked frequently and became close friends. He passed away in June 2010; he was sixty-two years of age. I wish he could have met Sean.

Also, for the first time, a magazine in Brazil was willing to break the stranglehold the Lins e Silvas had imposed on the media in that country. Dorrit Harazim, who wrote for
Piaui
magazine, a publication similar to
The New Yorker
, interviewed me and then wrote a fivethousand-word feature, “A Father in a Foreign Land,” in which she boldly told the story of Sean's abduction. The response from her readers was one of shock. They were appalled that such a thing could happen in their country, but apparently not surprised.