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Mr. Goldman had tried to make deals with his ex-wife’s family. Since the beginning, there were several approaches made for visitation. But the Brazilian family has never permitted them. First, they stopped answering the daily phone calls the father would make to his son. Sean’s maternal grandfather, testifying before the New Jersey courts, stated with frightening indifference, that his attorney had alerted him to the fact he was not obliged to speak to someone who was suing him. The grandfather then said that since he became aware of that fact, every time he heard Mr. Goldman’s voice on the phone, he’d immediately hang up.

Once more, it’s not about speculations or empty allegations. These are all facts supported by the transcript of the grandfather’s testimony. The documents are part of the court records.

On January 18, 2005, Mr. Goldman’s American attorney sent a letter to the maternal family’s attorneys, stating the child’s father couldn’t manage to speak to his son: one more fact with documentation to prove it.

The family started to reject gifts the father sent to Sean. Packages were returned to the US, and they can be shown to whoever wants to see them. The photos of these items are in the court records in Brazil and the US. More proven facts.

There were proposals for visitation in a third country, in a neutral environment. Every agreement made with the condition that Mr. Goldman give up the fight for his son. This was back when the family didn’t simply reject the father’s initiative, without any answer, polite or impolite, consistent or inconsistent.

As soon as he learned about Bruna’s death, Sean’s father got in touch with the maternal family, once again trying to reach an agreement. He opened the doors of his home, for Sean to return accompanied by his grandparents and even his stepfather. He offered a transition period, during which the contact between father and son would take place in Brazil, with a later trip to return to the US.

Everything was refused by the maternal family, who would prevent even the slightest contact between father and son. Indeed, the maternal family failed to inform Mr. Goldman about the passing of his child’s mother. Mr. Goldman learned about the tragedy from Brazilian newspapers. The family failed to mention the death of Sean’s mother even in court, presenting a petition before the Federal Supreme Court a few days layer, without even mentioning the fact, as if it had never happened.

International child abduction cases are difficult. People who work on these cases – like Mr. Joao Paulo, for example – know it’s not unusual that the left-behind parent spends years without contact with the child. It’s a painful experience, and if you did not live through it, you will never fully understand it.

But to be left behind, to have a child ripped from your arms, to fight the courts for years, and even to be called a bum, profiteer and a crook, is beyond one’s imagination.

Mr. Joao Paulo proudly states – in an untruthful manner, by the way – that Sean only vaguely remembers his father, when he stated that Sean did not speak English and when he stated that Sean has no memory of his life in the US. It’s very sad that it’s this way.

Sean should be encouraged to speak English and remember the place where he was born. He should be encouraged to reestablish a relationship with his father and practice his American citizenship. Nationality, culture, language and family relations are the inalienable rights of every child as stated in the Convention of Children’s Rights, of which Brazil is also a signatory. It’s unfortunate that the Brazilian family celebrates the fact that Sean is being deprived of these fundamental rights, of these rights that truly help to construct a person, in the full meaning of the word.

The letter sent from Mr. Joao Paulo to this Council mentions Sean’s abduction to Brazil as a mere detail, as if the international removal of a child were just a simple act, without importance.

It’s not. It’s very serious.

So serious, it became the basis of an international convention. This international convention is amongst the most popular on the planet, which today includes more than 70 signatory countries.

Strictly speaking, it is difficult to understand the discussion taking place today.

Sean lived with his mother and father. The mother, against the father’s wishes, took him away. This father has done everything he could to take his child home. The mother dies. And the child does not return to the father.

It’s said that the best interest of the child, after so much time passed, is to remain in Brazil with the stepfather.

The “child’s interests”: this phrase is being used, in this case, to justify all sorts of arbitrariness about the father’s rights, which are as constitutional as the full protection of the child’s rights.

In the beginning, it was not acceptable to return Sean to the US because it was a preliminary decision, and the child’s interests required caution. Then, it wasn’t acceptable because, even if it was the final sentence, too much time had passed, and the child’s interests indicated the need to maintain things as they were. Later, the child’s interests did not allow for the rupture of the bond created with the maternal family, even though bonds of the same nature, with the paternal family, had been broken unjustifiably by Sean’s mother, without reprimand.

Now, finally, it’s claimed the minor has a half-sister, and the child’s interests indicate the two children shouldn’t be separated. In fact, they claim that the sister represents the mother the minor recently lost, and the child’s interests do not allow the mother’s image to be taken away.

It’s odd that the child’s interests in growing up and living with his father were never considered.

To be honest, the child’s best interest, the only indisputable interest of the child, was to not be removed against his own will, against his father’s will and against the law, from the home he always had lived in since his birth.

The child has the fundamental right of full protection. What about the father? Doesn’t he have the fundamental right to effective jurisdictional custody? What effective custody is one denied not because of the invoked right but due to the slowness of a decision?

Doesn’t the father have the right to rapid due process? What rapid case lasts 5 years?

The child has, indeed, the fundamental right of full protection. But doesn’t the same constitution that grants the full protection prohibit self-protection? Doesn’t it institute the state monopoly of force, preventing one from taking the matters into his own hands? But until now, the Brazilian judiciary has protected the person who used self-protection to protect her own rights, the one who went ahead and took the child herself, against the applicable law and the institutional forms of settlement disputes.

The one who sought refuge in the public power, the one who sought refuge in the institutions, the one who had so much respect for his own child to try to resolve the problem through the use of institutional means for the settlement of disputes, well, he doesn’t matter much. He’s a gringo, a bum, a crook and a profiteer.

They say the interest of the child indicates that things should stay as they are. In Brazil, the interest of the child seems to indicate the best thing for the child, already orphaned by his mother, is to make him orphaned by his father.

It also says that the child’s best interest is also for him to be heard. How convenient. Sean has been under the care of a family for nearly five years. In the eyes of that family, his father is a violent gringo, a greedy bum, profiteer and a crook. I wonder if in these conditions an 8-year old child can freely express his opinions. I wonder, can we really let an 8-year old child choose his own future?

This whole discussion is indescribable.

This child will never be able to see his mother again. But he has a father. And he has his entire lifetime to rebuild a paternal relationship that was taken from him against his wishes. His mother’s company, tragically, has been lost forever. But his father’s has not. There’s a lot of time. There’s an entire lifetime.

This letter is already too long; it could end here. But Mr. David Goldman needs to clarify a few other things.

Mr. Joao Paulo, as soon as Bruna passed, initiated legal proceedings to be recognized as Sean’s new father. Mr. Joao Paulo intends to remove Mr. Goldman’s name from Seam’s birth certificate, replacing it with his own. Sean Richard Goldman would become Sean Bianchi Carneiro Ribeiro Lins e Silva. His paternal grandparents would no longer be Mr. Barry Goldman and wife. They would be Paulo Lins e Silva and wife.

One does not need to be versed in civil law to realize this plea is rigorously and strictly impossible from a judicial point of view. There are ex-wives, there are ex-husbands, but ex-parents do not and cannot exist. Nevertheless, the request was received and processed by Rio de Janeiro State Court.

But the question now is: how long has Mr. Joao Paulo Lins e Silva lived under the same roof as the minor Sean?

In the aforementioned plea, filed on August 28, 2008, Joao Paulo stated he had been living with the child for over four and a half years. However, four and a half years before August 2008, Sean was still living in the USA.

In a hearing at the Superior Court of Justice, on February 6, 2008, Joao Paulo and his attorneys stated that the minor had been living with the stepfather for five years. A few hours later, at the end of the hearing, these five years had turned into three. The hearing was recorded and the information can be verified by whoever wishes to verify it.

But, in the records of the previous cases between Bruna and David, there are reports made by the Rio de Janeiro State Court stating that in December 2005, Sean lived exclusively with his mother in his grandparents’ house.

Someone, therefore, is not telling the truth.

The expert from Rio’s state court stated that in December 2005, Sean lived with the mother and grandparents in the grandparents’ home. Joao Paulo, in the letter sent to this Council states, “…in less than 6 months after we were reunited we were living together…”, which means, still in 2004.

I repeat: someone is not telling the truth.

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