Indigent Foreign Parents of Abducted Children Can Qualify for Legal Services

The abduction of a child is every parent’s worst fear.  Yet all too frequently, it is a parent who is the abductor.  When one parent takes a child to a foreign country, the mother or father who is left behind faces not only a heartbreaking loss, but a daunting legal process in an unfamiliar legal system.  Without legal assistance, parents may never be able to bring their children home.  To help ensure that parents get the services they need, in December 2011 the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) issued new guidance to its grantees.  The guidance clarifies that LSC grantees have the authority to represent indigent foreign nationals in Hague Convention cases brought in United States courts for the return of, or access to, their children.

The Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is an international treaty that provides parents with a legal mechanism to return “wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained” children to their country of “habitual residence.”  Once there, the legal system of that country will resolve any custody disputes.  The Convention also seeks to promote the enjoyment of visitation when a parent and child/ren live in different treaty-partner countries.    Hague Convention cases are designed to be fast (courts may be asked to explain delays in decision-making after six weeks), and children found to be “wrongfully removed or retained” are to be returned forthwith.   However, not all cases resolve swiftly. 

Leyda Cuellar, a Panamanian woman, learned this after her estranged husband abducted their young daughter in an Australian airport.  From there he fled to the United States with Cuellar’s passport, leaving her stranded.  Cuellar filed a Hague Convention case in the United States to return her daughter to Panama, where they both had lived.

A woman of limited financial means, Cuellar fortunately found pro bono attorneys from a private firm in the United States to represent her.  Her attorneys successfully litigated her case all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Almost two years after the abduction, Cuellar was ultimately reunited with her daughter.

As Cuellar discovered, legal representation can be essential to foreign parents with abducted children in the United States.  LSC issued this new guidance to help ensure that no parents lose their children through abduction simply because they cannot afford attorneys’ fees.  The guidance reiterates that, under current federal and international law, legal services providers may represent indigent foreign parents in Hague Convention return and access cases in United States courts regardless of whether they reside abroad or in the United States.  Hague Convention cases can also be fee-generating, which allows pro bono attorneys like those who represented Leyda Cuellar to recover legal fees and expenses.

LSC developed the guidance in consultation with the Department of State and the Department of Justice’s Access to Justice Initiative (ATJ).  ATJ has actively supported efforts to ensure that foreign parents of abducted children, regardless of their income, have access to legal services in the United States for these cases.

The Department of State serves as the U.S. Central Authority for the Hague Child Abduction Convention (“USCA”).  The USCA administers the Hague Convention Attorney Network, which comprises volunteer attorneys who offer pro bono or reduced fee representation to income-eligible parents in treaty-partner countries.  Many LSC grantees participate in the Attorney Network, and others are welcome to join; however, enrolling is not a prerequisite to representing parents in Hague cases.  Information about the Attorney Network is available on the State Department’s website  and click “For Attorneys & Judges” on the left hand toolbar.

Since its launch in 2010, the Access to Justice Initiative has worked to help the justice system efficiently deliver outcomes that are fair and accessible to all, irrespective of wealth and status.  The Initiative’s staff works within the Department of Justice, across federal agencies, and with state, local and tribal justice system stakeholders to increase access to counsel and legal assistance, and to improve the justice delivery systems that serve people who are unable to afford lawyers.

If you would like to learn more about the Access to Justice Initiative, visit Justice.gov/atj. 

Initial Appearance Held on Aiding and Abetting International Parental Kidnapping

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont announced that Timothy Miller, 34, of Tennessee and Managua, Nicaragua, appeared in federal court today for an initial appearance in the District of Vermont. Miller has been charged in a criminal complaint with aiding and abetting international parental kidnapping. At the hearing, United States Magistrate Judge John M. Conroy appointed counsel for Miller and set conditions for his release. The Court scheduled a probable cause hearing for May 10, 2011 at 11:00.

Mr. Miller was arrested in the Eastern District of Virginia on April 18. 2011. Subsequent to his arrest, Miller was released on conditions set by a federal magistrate judge in Alexandria, Virginia pending his appearance today in the District of Vermont.

Mr. Miller is represented by Assistant Federal Public Defender Stephen Barth. The prosecutor is AUSA Annika Frostick. The case has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Cold Case Parental Abduction

On April 30, 2010, Conversations with American Heroes at the Watering Hole will feature a conversation with private investigator and former law enforcement official Monty Curtis about the cold case parental abduction of Charles and William Vosseler.

Program Date: April 30, 2010
Program Time: 2100 hours Pacific
Topic: Cold Case Parental Abduction
Listen Live: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lawenforcement/2010/05/01/cold-case-parental-abduction

About the Guest
Monty J. Curtis, “a Certified Fraud Examiner ("CFE"), is President of Corporate Intelligence Group, LLC. He has a distinguished career as a professional investigator that spans more than 21 years. Sensitive internal inquiries, due diligence investigations, fraud investigations, investigations into corporate sabotage, hostile takeover and proxy fight-related inquiries, environmental investigations, asset searches, risk assessments and locating and interviewing witnesses are amongst the assignments Mr. Curtis regularly conducts and manages. In addition, he is also experienced conducting investigations that involve numerous jurisdictions, unique challenges and that require a vast array of skill sets.

Prior to joining CIG, he held management positions at several international investigative and risk mitigation consultancies including Vance, Decision Strategies, Kroll and the Investigative Group International (“IGI”). He was also formerly founder and President of New Hampshire-based Investigative Strategies, Inc. that also had offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine” Monty Curtis was “formerly a law enforcement officer and certified intermediate weapons instructor.”

About the Case
On October 9, 1986, Charles Martin Vosseler abducted his two boys, Charles Jason Vosseler (“CJ”), not quite four at the time, and William Martin Vosseler (“Billy”), 2 and-a-half at the time. They were last seen in Rochester, New Hampshire. There are active UFAP warrants for Vosseler and CJ and Billy are listed in NCIC. Vosseler informed his then wife, that he was taking the boys for the weekend to visit relatives out of state. He did not return them as promised. On Monday, the mother went to Vosseler’s office where he owned a rural real estate company. The doors to the business were locked and the mother was told Vosseler had let all his employees go and had cleaned out the office the week before. Prior to the abduction, he took the mother’s name off of credit cards and unbeknownst to her, had stopped making payments on her car. Before he kidnapped the children he also took all pictures of the boys, address books and had secretly auctioned off almost everything Vosseler and his wife had in storage. He even took the mother’s wallet. The only pictures of the boys were taken from five seconds of video a friend shot of her son’s (the friend’s son) birthday. Other than memories, those are the only images the mother has of CJ and Billy. Although the details of his initial post-abduction footsteps are not known, we learned Vosseler, probably by design, he landed in Stilwell, Oklahoma in December 2006. Stilwell is a very rural area that borders Arkansas.

Coincidently, or not, the house where he lived in Stilwell is not far from Elohim City, a private community of extremists that gained national attention for its supposed ties to members of the Silent Brotherhood in the 1980s and with convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s. In 1986, the same year, Charlie kidnapped CJ and Billy, a Canadian woman sought refuge with her children contravening a court order awarding custody of the children to her husband. I do not know if Vosseler had any connection to the organization but he has been described as an “anti-government,” and “rules don’t apply to me” kind of individual.

In 1987, a person he had been dating Vosseler (Vosseler had changed his name to Charles Wilson and changed the children’s last names as well) saw a pictures of CJ and Billy on a Child Find. She called Child Find but before the FBI arrived in Stilwell, Vosseler had been tipped off and burned his house, a vehicle and some other possessions. Presumably, this was done to get rid of any evidence that might help find him in the future. There have been no known viable leads since then.

It has been nearly 23 years since Ruth, the mother, has seen her children. She does not know the fate of her children, and most likely the children no nothing about her. What they do know, if anything, is likely untrue.

About the Watering Hole
The Watering Hole is Police slang for a location cops go off-duty to blow off steam and talk about work and life. American Heroes Radio brings you to the watering hole, where it is Sometimes funny; sometimes serious; but, always interesting.

About the Host
Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster was a sworn member of the Los Angeles Police Department for 24 years. He retired in 2003 at the rank of Lieutenant. He holds a bachelor’s from the Union Institute and University in Criminal Justice Management and a Master’s Degree in Public Financial Management from California State University, Fullerton; and, has completed his doctoral course work. Raymond E. Foster has been a part-time lecturer at California State University, Fullerton and Fresno; and is currently a Criminal Justice Department chair, faculty advisor and lecturer with the Union Institute and University. He has experience teaching upper division courses in Law Enforcement, public policy, Public Safety Technology and leadership. Raymond is an experienced author who has published numerous articles in a wide range of venues including magazines such as Government Technology, Mobile Government, Airborne Law Enforcement Magazine, and Police One. He has appeared on the History Channel and radio programs in the United States and Europe as subject matter expert in technological applications in Law Enforcement.

Listen, call, join us at the Watering Hole:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lawenforcement/2010/05/01/cold-case-parental-abduction

Archive:
http://www.americanheroesradio.com/cold_case_parental_abduction.html

Program Contact Information
Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.), MPA
editor@police-writers.com
909.599.7530