[NYTr] Father of 4-Year-Old Cuban Girl Says Custody Case a Kidnapping Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:36:25 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Recent related articles: Cuba: Another Elian? Custody Fight Gears Up, Aug 26, 2007 http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20070820/067159.html Unusual issues define Cuban girl's custody battle, Aug 3, 2007 http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20070730/066266.html Another Sad Custody Battle over a Cuban Child, Mar 29, 2007 http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20070326/060620.html CBS News 4 - Aug 28, 2007 http://cbs4.com/local/local_story_238115625.html Dad In Cuba Custody Case Calls Case a Kidnapping Experts Testify in Cuba-Miami Child Custody Battle by Ileana Varela (CBS4) MIAMI Nearly eight years after the battle over young Elian Gonzalez divided Miami, another Cuban child has become the center of a bitter custody fight. The trial began Monday morning to determine if the four-year-old girl's father, Rafael Izquierdo, who lives in Cuba, can regain custody of his daughter or whether she should remain in South Florida with a couple who wants to adopt her. 32-year-old Izquierdo is seeking to return the girl to the communist island and is calling the case a kidnapping. Rebecca Kapusta, an attorney for Florida's Department of Children and Families, argued that the girl should be allowed to remain with her wealthy Cuban-American foster family and that they be allowed to begin adoption proceedings. "What you're trying to do is say that if a father wants to remove his child from placement....that if a father does that or a mother, that constitutes prospective abuse?, said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen. "I have never seen anything like this in all of my years of doing dependency [hearings]." Izquierdo had let the girl come to the United States with her mother, Elena Perez, who allegedly attempted suicide after arriving to the U.S. She allowed the girl to be taken into state custody because of her mental state. In court Monday, Attorney Ira Kurzban said Izquierdo wanted his child to have a better life when he allowed his former girlfriend to bring her to the United States, and could not have predicted she would have a mental breakdown. "When it comes to my children, I'm guilty," said Perez over the weekend. "My children have lived in agony, that's my fault; I don't deny that, my children didn't ask to be brought in to the world." Kurzban urged Cohen to dismiss the abandonment charges, "and immediately return the child to her father." The girl's foster parents, former baseball agent Joe Cubas and his wife, want to adopt the girl in a case that's raising memories of the battle over Elian Gonzalez almost eight years ago. "But the little girl doesn't call Izquierdo dad. She hasn't seen him since she was an infant, and she and her half brother have been living with her foster parents, since they were removed from their mother's custody," said Cubas. CBS4's Ileana Varela reported that DCF has sided with Cuba's family. Its attorney argues that Izquierdo abandoned the girl by allowing her to come to the U.S. with her mother. They also argue that he endangered the girl by allowing her to live with her mother, who neighbors in Cuba allegedly called "la loca", a reference to someone who is crazy. However Izquierdo's attorney argued he didno?=t know about Elena Perez's illness, which eventually left her to lose custody of both of her children. The department also says Izquierdo didn't immediately come to claim her after her mother was hospitalized, but Cohen pointed out that it took months for the U.S. to issue Izquierdo a visa. "We know that there were extenuating circumstances because of what goes on between Cuba and the United States. I know that and you know that," Cohen told Kapusta. Perez has allowed Cubas and his wife to adopt the girl's 12-year old half-brother Cubas said the girl, who calls him "papi," shouldn't be separated from her brother and doesn't want to go back to Cuba. Kurzban told Cohen that as soon as Izquierdo learned that his daughter was being put up for adoption, "he got a lawyer and said 'I want my child back."' On Monday, Cohen read the transcript from earlier hearings that gave a picture of the initial struggle by the girl's mother in the U.S. "I was coming here with great ideas, with only positive ideas for my children," Perez told a previous judge. But upon arriving at the airport in the U.S., Perez's husband abandoned her and relatives in Miami said he couldn't stay with them. She briefly received help from Catholic Charities and moved to Texas, but found little reliable daycare for her children and returned to Miami. Days before Christmas, she called 911, begging for help and saying she didn't want to hurt her children. "I was eaten with panic. I didn't have anybody," Perez said, according to the transcript. "I was just looking for a defense for the government to look what was going on with me and my children." Perez eventually agreed to allow her children to stay with the cousin of the husband who abandoned her. But the transcript also made clear that Perez was confused about the proceedings and her attorney didn't speak Spanish. She wanted to avoid a trial and have her children to stay with the relatives. Izquierdo says he wants to take his daughter back to his family home in the central Cuban village of Cabaiguan, where he lives with his parents, wife and their 7-year-old daughter. "Her room is ready with and her bed and her little toys," said Izquierdo. [The Associated Press contributed to this report.] (B) 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. 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