Piauí Magazine
November 2008

Family Matters
A Father in a Foreign Land
Dorrit Harazim

A week in which the personal dramas and court trials of three families collided in Rio de Janeiro once again. At the heart of the matter, an eight year-old boy.

he plane landed in Rio. Goldman put the pile of photos back in their envelopes. He stopped to stare at a picture in which his son, in blue boots with his chest puffed up proudly, was holding a striped bass while fishing with his father. “And to think that this picture was taken a month before that Wednesday, June 16th, 2004. I must have looked like such a fool, taking them to the airport for a trip that I thought was just a vacation. Their return ticket was for fifteen days later, on a Thursday.”

Three months before that date, Goldman had signed a document authorizing Sean’s trip with his mother since he wouldn’t be going with them to Rio. The document was valid until July 17th. “Bruna’s parents, who had bought property close to our home and were visiting, left on the same flight. They’re the only ones who can say how much they knew and how much they were part of their daughter’s decision to never come back. It was the last time I saw Sean.”

From that moment on, the case of Sean Richard Goldman combusted spontaneously, with the separation of a family leading to the multiplication of legal conflicts. But since the case falls under the secrecy of Brazilian justice, only the parties directly involved in the case have access to the court documents.

However, neither the New Jersey courts, where one part of the dispute takes place, nor the American media or the American citizen David Goldman fall under the jurisdiction of secrecy of justice in Brazil. Inevitably, the dispute became the talk of the town in various niches of Rio society, making the round among law offices and the media. It’s become so well known that emails allegedly sent by Paulo Lins e Silva, from last October, in which he refers to the century-long tradition of his family in the legal elite, found their way, albeit undesired, on to the World Wide Web.

“I get so annoyed by their arrogance when they suggest that the media investigate me, that I don’t have a real job, that my health is fragile, that I don’t have a home of my own to raise my child, or that Bruna always supported me,” says Goldman, who always uses the pronoun “them” to refer to the Lins e Silva family and his ex-wife’s family—opponents who, although invisible to him, he fears as having exceptional power and influence.

Seated at the edge of one of the two beds in his hotel in Copacabana, he responded to questions as he unpacked his bags. One of them was set aside for things he brought for the reunion with his son: new toys, Sean’s old toys from New Jersey, tee-shirts and hats, miniature cars and American candy. “I don’t know if he even plays with this type of car anymore,” he commented, as if to himself. He carefully showed a sticky green object: “I think it was a good idea to bring this rubber frog. Sean loved it and if he holds it, he might remember it, remembering how it feels in his hand. He’ll be able to see that the frog’s left leg still needs to be fixed.”

At 6:50pm, seventy minutes before the scheduled visit with his son at the address given by João Paulo Lins e Silva to the court, the phone rings in room 1420. Goldman answers. It’s his lawyer, who had spent five hours at court that day guaranteeing the conditions of the authorized visit, with two federal agents on alert just in case. He had three pieces of news for David Goldman.

The first was bad: “they” had entered a last-minute plea, asking the judge to veto the visit. The second piece of news was good: the judge denied the request. The third, a delay: the judge bumped the visit to 8am the following morning, a Saturday. This way, they would avoid exposing the minor to a potentially scary first visit in the dark on that cold and rainy night. “I can’t stand this rollercoaster anymore!” Goldman exploded. “I think they want to get me crazy.” An official from the American consulate in Rio, designated by the embassy to accompany Goldman on the visit, said goodbye and promised to come back the following morning. Calm and maternal, she told him she has four children. “How old are they?” Goldman wanted to know. “The oldest one is your son’s age.”

Since the night was already lost, the American continued to recite the story as he had begun on the plane. According to his account, Bruna and Sean had been gone only three or four days that year in 2004 when he received the shocking phone call: “David, we need to talk. Our love affair is over. Our marriage, too. I’ve decided to stay in Brazil with our son.” His young wife’s voice sounded metallic, cutting, incomprehensible. Bruna asked that he come to Rio as soon as possible to sign separation papers and to give her full custody of the child. She also wanted David to promise not to sue her in New Jersey courts. If he didn’t agree, he would lose access to his son. Once the initial shock was over, Goldman found a lawyer in his state named Patricia Apy.

But Bruna was quicker. Twenty one days after landing at Galeao Airport, she requested full custody and possession of her son at the Second Family Court in Rio. A month later, a judge in charge of the case awarded her custody. According to Patricia Apy’s interpretation, the judge failed to take into consideration that under the Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Sean was being retained in Brazil in an illicit manner.

In the civil suit number FD-13-395-05C, opened by David Goldman in the New Jersey Supreme Court, Bruna and her parents, cited as co-defendants, were ordered to appear in court to present their case in the Monmouth County Family Court, by 1:30pm on September 14th, 2004. It was also determined that “the defendant/mother will respond to this order by immediately bringing (within 48 hours of receiving the notification of this order) the minor Sean back to the United States, state of New Jersey, city of Tinton Falls.” Since she refused to comply with the order, the same court awarded the father, in March 2005, sole custody of his son.

Three court cases followed, with the boy growing up in the company of his mother, two maternal grandparents, and his stepfather. Every time Goldman entered a plea asking for Sean’s seizure so that he could be returned to his habitual residence, the plea was rejected by the Brazilian courts. On the federal level, Goldman says, voting was neck and neck, but time passed and soon enough, the feared twelve-month period ended: one of the exceptions under the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction allows, in article number 12, that once a year has passed after the illegal retention of a child, his integration into his new environment is to be taken into account. Translation: in a country like Brazil, where legal tradition favors that a child stay in the company of his mother, David Goldman’s case became much more complicated.

Over two centuries ago, an Italian father of more noble lineage than the American Goldman, had a similar experience. His name was Alessandro Fé d’Ostiani, a count and a diplomat. He married Rita de Souza Breves, the daughter of knight commander Breves, considered the richest Brazilian man of his time and whose lands extended from Itaguaí to Parati, from the mountains to the sea. The couple had a daughter, Paulina, who lost her mother when she was six years old, and was brought up under the care of her grandparents.

Having been transferred back to Italy, count d’Ostiani was forbidden by the Breves family to take his daughter with him. He had to appeal to the Emperor Pedro II and had a military escort commanded by Captain Piragibe to impose the order to find and collect his daughter. To no avail. Piragibe and his soldiers were thrown out of the property by armed men, and Fé d’Ostiani left Brazil empty handed. Knight commander Breves warned the count: it was the last time the Italian set foot on his property alive. Paulina only reunited with her father when she had grown into a young woman.

Previous   1 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  Next

Copyright © 2008 Piauí Magazine - Brazil, Reprinted with permission

Top of page