A Father's Love (9 page)

About ten days after Sean had been taken, I was down at Sandy Hook Bay Marina preparing my boat to go out when a guy who looked to be about my age showed up. “Hi, I'm Mark DeAngelis,” he said. “My father and I are on your boat today.” I checked in Mark and his dad and we boarded the boat.

Mark was about my height, and looked a bit like the actor Toby McGuire, with a light, scruffy beard. Winsome and articulate, Mark was quick to engage in conversation as we headed out to sea. He told me that he worked on Wall Street, as do many of our Shore Catch clients, given our proximity to the Big Apple, and that he and his fiancée, Denise, had just moved to our area less than two weeks earlier, to a suburban section of New Jersey that was much less stressful than New York City and ideal for raising a family. When he mentioned the location where they had purchased their home, I recognized it immediately. It was only a short distance from my house.

Once out at sea, we found the fishing slower than usual, so after about thirty minutes or so, Mark and his father and I struck up a deeper conversation. Although I was unaccustomed to sharing my feelings with strangers, for some reason—maybe it was the father-and-son thing, I don't know—I felt willing to open up a bit with Mark and his dad. Before I knew what hit me, I was pouring my heart out to them. I apologized for not being more on my game, and admitted that I had been going through a difficult time.

I didn't volunteer the details of what had happened right away, but as the day went on, I shared more openly with them about what Bruna had done, how she had walked out of our marriage without any warning and taken our son to Brazil. I could tell that Mark and his father were taken aback by the story, and although they offered no solutions, they were empathetic and kind in their encouragement to me. Despite my emotional condition, we did end up putting a nice catch together, with Mark's dad landing a thirty-pound bass. Mark and I stayed in contact, and fished together again several times, and he never failed to ask me about what progress I was making in getting Sean home. Clearly he took more than a casual interest in my situation. He became a good friend, and one of my staunchest allies in my efforts to bring Sean home. Although I'm fairly certain that Mark DeAngelis would not claim to be a saint, I'm convinced that he was heaven-sent. Sometimes angels have beards.

AFTER HER RECENT threatening tone, Bruna's phone conversations remained somewhat cordial, albeit stilted, as she continued trying to coax me to travel to Brazil. When I suggested, instead, that she return to the United States, she became irate, screaming at me over the phone about how miserable she had been in New Jersey. “I don't want to live in New Jersey anymore!”

“Why are you screaming at me, Bruna?” I asked.

“I don't want to live in that place. Please understand this!” That's all she would say. When I suggested that if she had wanted a divorce or a separation, we could have talked about it had she been more open with me, she grew defensive.

“Bruna, you're the one who ran off to Brazil with Sean.”

“I ran off to Brazil with Sean because if I was there, and I told you that I wanted to separate, I knew you were never going to give me the separation. That's why.”

The phone calls continued with a tone of pseudo-friendliness, although I could tell that Bruna was growing impatient.

One day in July, shortly after I once again refused to acquiesce to her demands, I came in from a fishing charter and was cleaning my boat when my Nextel Direct phone squawked. The only person who had that number was Bruna. But it wasn't Bruna on the phone.

“We know who you are. We know where you live,” an ominoussounding male voice growled. “Prepare to die.” Click. The phone went dead.

I stared at the phone in amazement.
Is this some kind of joke?
I asked myself.

Then, a few days later, I received another such call. Again it was a man's voice in a poorly disguised accent. The threats were much the same.

It happened again a few more times.

I called Tricia Apy, and she contacted the FBI. Federal agent John Marley and one of his colleagues came to my home to discuss the situation with me. The agents told me to get out of my house right away. “You have to take this seriously,” Agent Marley warned. “This is what we call a conditional threat. If you stop doing what you are doing, they will probably let you alone. But if you don't, they may try to do something. We can't really do anything until an actual attempt has been made and there is proof.”

Great
, I thought,
so an attempt on my life or worse has to be made before they can take action.
“Well, I'm not going to stop until I get my son back home,” I said.

John nodded. “Okay, fine. Then you should leave your house for a while.”

I moved out of my home and stayed with my parents for a few days. Then, thinking that I might be putting them in danger, for a couple of weeks I slept on my boat in parts of the bay where I knew I'd be hard to find. During that time, I'd stop by the house every so often, just to pick up my mail or some fresh clothing. On several occasions I found evidence indicating that somebody had been snooping around my house. Someone had been trying to pull mail out of my mailbox slot. A couple of times I came home and found cigarette butts, still burning, on my front stoop. It was clear that somebody wanted me to know he or she had been there.

I admit that at times I let the circumstances get the best of me and I succumbed to imagining all sorts of outlandish scenarios. For instance, it seemed within the realm of possibility that someday I might flip the switch on my boat and trigger an explosion. I quickly discounted such negative thoughts and attributed them to watching too many movies. I decided that I would not live in fear, and after a few weeks I moved back home, with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and a can of mace. These people had already stolen my son. I was not going to allow them to steal my life as well. If they tried to kill me, I wouldn't go down without a fight.

I COULD NEVER have imagined that fateful evening as I took my family to the airport and kissed them good-bye that our fairy-tale love story would disintegrate into an incredible tale of deception and tragedy, a bitter legal battle between Bruna's family and me waged over international borders. Nor could I have guessed that the nightmare would continue for so long.

People often say there are two sides to every story. But if that was the case, Bruna would have trumpeted her charges on the first and every subsequent page of her court filings. Had there been any abuse in our marriage, neglect, drugs, alcohol, or infidelity, she would surely have spelled this out in court documents against me. But she didn't. She couldn't. There were no skeletons in my closet.

On August 26, 2004, the Superior Court of New Jersey granted the first of many orders for Sean's return. The court order demanded that Bruna return Sean to Tinton Falls within forty-eight hours of receiving the notice. It also froze Bruna's personal bank account, which contained around three thousand dollars, as well as the Ribeiros' New Jersey bank account, containing slightly more than nineteen thousand dollars. Nor were the Ribeiros permitted to sell or transfer their beachfront condominium until further order from the court in New Jersey. The court order essentially granted temporary custody of Sean to me, pending any final decisions that might be entertained after his return. Moreover, the court order clearly stated that any violation of the order or retention of Sean could constitute the crime of kidnapping.

When Bruna failed to comply with the court order, on September 3, 2004, I asserted my rights as the “left-behind parent” under the Hague Convention on International Abductions in an effort to enlist Brazil's assistance in returning my son. Although I didn't fully realize its importance at the time, the date of the filing was crucial. To compel the return of an abducted child under the Hague treaty, the left-behind parent must formally assert his or her rights within one year of the abduction. I had filed with the U.S. Department of State requesting Sean's return approximately six weeks after he failed to return home and I filed the application with the Brazilian court less than four months after his abduction. With the help of Tricia Apy, I hired a Brazilian legal firm to represent me in Brazil. Because Brazil had signed on to the Hague Convention only as recently as 2000, there were few lawyers in that country with any experience handling Hague cases. The junior partner in the three-attorney firm with the most experience in Hague litigation, Ricardo Zamariola Jr., had joined his partners, Marcos Ortiz and Roberto Andrade, only a little more than a year before Bruna absconded with Sean. Ricardo was a mere twenty-four years of age when he and his partners, who were only five and four years older than him respectively, fought their first case involving the Hague Convention, winning the return of a child born to a Swedish father and a Brazilian mother. Soon after, before he was even a full partner in the firm, Ricardo helped Marcos on another Hague Convention case, this one involving a Brazilian couple living in the United States. When Tricia called and left a voice mail for Ricardo asking him if would be interested in my case, the Hague Convention had never been tested in a case involving a Brazilian and an American citizen. Ricardo took the case and asked for a fee of fourteen thousand dollars plus expenses. At the time, this sounded like an astronomical figure. Before it was over, I'd consider a fourteengrand attorney's bill a bargain.

Although the youngest member of his law firm, and the one with the least experience, Ricardo Zamariola was brilliant. Level-headed and a quick study, and extremely fluent in English, he was perfect for the case. None of us could have imagined when he signed on in September 2004 the depths of the legal, procedural, political, and diplomatic battle we were entering—not to mention the wrenching emotional roller-coaster ride we were about to take.

 

 

EVERY DAY DURING the next year, from September 2004 to September 2005, I anxiously awaited a phone call saying that the case had been resolved, that Bruna was bringing Sean home, or that I could go get him and bring him home. No such call ever came. Instead, all we got was one legal maneuver after another on the part of Bruna and her parents, with multiple filings and conflicting arguments lodged in the United States and Brazil simultaneouly, as one month turned into another without my child. Nearly twelve agonizing months dragged by, months filled with protracted litigations by Bruna and the Ribeiros' attorneys. Finally, in August 2005, the Superior Court of New Jersey entered final custody orders against Bruna in both countries, finding her to be in willful contempt of the New Jersey court orders in failing to return Sean. At the same time, the court found Bruna's continued retention of Sean to be “actionable” under the International Parental Kidnapping and Crime Act of 1993, as well as under New Jersey laws regarding interference with custody matters. This meant that I could bring charges of kidnapping against Bruna.

But I didn't. Why? Because I had already filed for assistance under the Hague Convention, and since my case was pending in Brazil, my attorneys advised me not to seek criminal prosecution—not yet—because such an action might be used as a defense by Bruna to the obligation to return Sean home. It was crazy! But I dared not allow myself to wallow in the legal morass. I decided to let the attorneys wade through that mess. I tried my best to focus on work. I now realized that I was going to incur massive legal bills, so I needed to work as much and as often as I could. I took some modeling jobs when they came, but mostly worked at the fishing business. Besides, going back out to sea was good for me, almost therapeutic. I actually developed a reputation for taking my fishing clients out for exceptionally long trips. Why not? I had nothing to come home to, so I didn't mind spending a few extra hours out on the sea. My clients thought I was giving them a bargain, giving them more for their money, but in truth, they were giving me a valid reason not to go home to my empty house.