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São Paulo, 16 March 2009

To: National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents

Re: Sean Goldman

Dear Sirs,

I report to this council representing Mr. George David Goldman, an American citizen who, since mid-2004, has been battling hard and fighting judicial battles before the Brazilian courts in an attempt to repatriate his minor son, Sean Richard Goldman, to the United States.

We learned, a few weeks ago, that Mr. Joao Paulo Bagueira Leal Lins e Silva had addressed correspondence to this Council and the Brazilian media, in reference to the case of the minor Sean Goldman . In this correspondence, Mr. Joao Paulo refers to Mr. David Goldman as “…lazy husband…”, exposing publicly, in a demeaning way, alleged intimate details of the first marriage of his wife Bruna.

It’s not the intention of this response to dispute the allegations made by Mr. Joao Paulo that Bruna did not maintain sexual relations with Mr. David Goldman, nor that he did not desire his wife during the marriage. No. Mr. Goldman will not stoop to that level. Although he had litigated against Bruna in the Brazilian and American courts for more than four years, David Goldman has never made negative accusations against the mother of his son. Except for the criticism – always consistently repeated – of her attitude of illegally retaining Sean outside the United States against the will of his father and against American law, David Goldman, during more than fours years of litigation with more than two thousand pages of court proceedings, has never exposed his intimacies with Bruna to anyone, only in the exact measure needed to prove his right to repatriate the minor. David Goldman will not overstep these boundaries now.

Moreover, it is extremely clear that the couple’s sexual routine is irrelevant to the solution of the said controversy at hand: the repatriation of minor Sean Goldman to the United States of America.

Mr. David Goldman will also not waste the Council’s time trying to convince anyone regarding who was the breadwinner of the family when David was still married to Bruna.

This is ultimately because even if Mr. Goldman really were a “…lazy husband…” according to what Mr. Lins e Silva says, even if Bruna was the sole breadwinner of the family when she was married to David, that would not give Sean’s mother the right to retain her child outside the United States, against the father’s will and against New Jersey law where the child had lived since his birth.

Notwithstanding that, some of the financial aspects raised by Mr. Lins e Silva will be addressed later in this letter, not only because Mr. Goldman has been accused of extortion and check fraud, but also because clarifying a few untruths will help this Council give Sean’s stepfather due credibility.

Now that the non-crucial matters in the letter have been made clear, let’s move to the matter that is crucial: the incredible and moving judicial battle in which Mr. Goldman is engaged in two different continents, to retrieve his son.

On this topic, the letter signed by Mr. Lins e Silva leads one to believe that Mr. Goldman, after his son’s removal from the United States, had forgotten about the child. That he would have resigned himself to losing his son. That he would have disappeared, and “…after smelling money…” reappeared more than four years later, when he learned about the passing of his ex-wife. Mr. Lins e Silva says at one point, questioning the true interest of Mr. Goldman in his son: “Note that if he were really suffering or interested he wouldn’t have begun his outcry four and a half years later. He would have done that the week after Bruna came to Brazil!!!”

This writer admits he is perplexed.

Bruna came to Brazil on June 16, 2004, with authorization from Mr. Goldman to remain in Rio de Janeiro only for what should have been be a short vacation period. On June 19, 2004, Bruna told Mr. Goldman over the phone that she would not return to the United States and that she would keep Sean with her, regardless of the father’s wishes.

The travel authorization given by the child’s father allowed Sean to remain outside of the United States only until July 18, 2004. From that day on [July 18th], Sean’s presence in Brazil was considered a retention of the minor outside his habitual residence, going against what the father had consented and thus violating New Jersey legislation.

David Goldman, then, immediately began his “…outcry…”.

Thirty-six days later, on August 23, 2004, Mr. David Goldman requested a court order from the New Jersey courts, pleading for the custody of his son and his immediate return to the United States. On August 26, 2004, the Superior Court of New Jersey delivered the first of three decisions of the U.S. judiciary – all solemnly ignored by Sean’s mother – which determined that Bruna and the maternal grandparents should return the minor to the United States immediately.

A little more than a week later, on September 3, 2004, Mr. David Goldman – then trusting that Brazil would fully comply with its international responsibility – reported his son’s removal to Rio de Janeiro to the U.S. State Department, triggering the mechanism of international judicial cooperation foreseen by the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Brazil agreed to the convention, promulgated under decree number 3.413/2000.

More time went by and in October 2004, there was still no word on the conclusion of the international judicial proceedings foreseen in the Hague Convention. Mr. Goldman realized he could wait no longer.

He hired attorneys in Brazil and using one of the options given in the convention, started judicial proceedings in the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro, asking for his son’s repatriation to the United States. The referred proceeding began on November 16, 2004, less than four months after the retention of his son in Brazil had taken place against his will. On December 22, 2004, Mr. David Goldman was cited for the terms of the custody request, proposed by Bruna before the State Court of Rio de Janeiro. He was present, as stated in the records, and contested the request, also pleading for the child’s return to the United States.

For four months after he received the news that his son would not voluntarily return to the United States, Mr. David Goldman triggered the appropriate mechanism of international judiciary cooperation and, if that wasn’t enough, went forward and got involved in three court orders, two of which were in a country 5,000 miles far from his, whose language he does not speak and where he had been before only for a few days, on vacation.

The only thing Mr. David Goldman did not do was take justice into his own hands.

He didn’t even think about coming to Brazil and removing his child from Rio de Janeiro without the mother’s consent – acting in a similar manner to his ex-wife. No.

Mr. Goldman preferred to trust the Brazilian institutions. He preferred to trust the rule of law, which seems so clear. After all, Brazil, a few years before, had signed an international convention which, as even a layman would understand, expressly determines the return of a child to the country of habitual residence, in the cases in which the other parent did not consent to his/her removal.

Brazil made the six weeks provided by the convention – that’s right, the convention requires the repatriation of the child in six weeks – transform into months, and the months turned into years. Into four long years.

The reason for this father’s defeat was much crueler.

The reason is the following: although it was recognized that Sean was removed to Brazil against applicable legislation, and that, hence in principle his repatriation would be fully appropriate, the Federal Court understood that, at that point, at the time of trial, in October of 2005, too much time had passed, and the consolidation of the actual situation of the child recommended his maintenance in Rio de Janeiro in the company of the mother, although the illicit act foreseen on article 3 had been recognized.

The question that comes to mind is obvious: “What could this father have done differently? What could this father have done to prevent time from passing? To avoid the sentence that recognized that his right was nothing but a consolation prize, with no practical effect? There is only one answer: Nothing, this father could not have done anything differently.

This father could have not come to Brazil and removed his child from Rio de Janeiro without a supporting Brazilian court order. This father needed to appeal to the judiciary. His plea was denied not because he didn’t have the right he was alleged to possess, but because time had passed.

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