I am shocked that CONANI tried to dismiss your petition. Is that erroneous action common in the DR?
There seem to be a lot of 'coincidences' in my case that are troubling.
First, there seems to be a child support judgment against me that seems to have been given in late February 2010, almost 7 months after I filed my petition and the DR's CA received my petition (August, 2009). CONANI was required under article 16 of the HCCH to suspend all hearings related to custody once they received my petition.
If we go back to a few months before I filed the Hague Petition to April 2009 when the final custody trial took place in Massachusetts I think the implications start to take shape. During the trial, the abductor was not present, but her attorney was present and took part in the trial. During an exchange with the judge, who was presiding over the custody hearing, regarding the Hague Convention he (abductor's attorney) said something to the effect that I cannot petition for Kali's return under the HCCH because apparently the Abductor had filed something already.
What this turned out to be was that the abductor had gone to CONANI a couple of weeks earlier (sometime in March 2009) and informed CONANI of the custody proceedings in Massachusetts. Apparently, the abductor's Attorney in MA was trying to say that since the Dominican Republic's CA had already been informed by the abductor of the custody issue and of my case in Massachusetts.
In fact this played out when the initial response from CONANI to my petition was sent back to OCI. CONANI and particularly their Attorney Christian Maldanado specifically cited the fact that the Abductor had come to him and made a report of the custody proceedings in Massachusetts. He went on to cite what he believed were errors on the part of the courts in MA that made my petition invalid. These claims were totally baseless and complete mis-interpretations of the Hague Convention which OCI subsequently refuted. OCI's objections were accepted by CONANI in February, 2010 and I was suddenly given a court date.
This is again very coincidental because in February 2010 an individual called Jose Grullon suddenly started posting to this forum regarding my case. He claimed he was taking an academic interest in my case according to his posts. In the background he was also sending me emails privately to 2 email accounts one of which was only known to the abductor. He mentioned that he was working hard to get my day in court. Ironically a couple of weeks later I was given a court date in the DR. During the initial court hearing the abductor was represented by 1 Attorney and her 'assistant'. This assistant turned out to be an individual named Jose Grullon.
Another interesting connection and possibly coincidence, the current Attorney for the abductor in the Dominican Republic, Dilia Leticia Jorge Mera, a member of the International Association of Matrimonial Lawyers (here is her profile on iaml.org
http://www.iaml.org/members_data/profile/diliajorgemera/index.html?refer=/members/index.html) apparently was an interim judge in CONANI. Dilia Leticia Jorge Mera is apparently a fan of David Goldman's Attorney according to her own blog
http://familiaymas-dilia.blogspot.com/ and apparently met David's Attorney.
Now, another coincidence, we have CONANI, after accepting my petition, asking the judge to dismiss my case.
I will be posting more about the Abductor's legal team and also will be posting all the emails that Jose Grullon has been sending me in a later post. However, I am going to leave it up to you to draw the conclusions here from what I have written.
