This story is confusing, because People Magazine and The AP have reports with conflicting titles, although they essentially have the same details. People claims that Kelly Rutherford’s two children, currently living in Monaco with their father, Daniel Giersch, will not travel to the US for a scheduled custody hearing next week. A teleconference was held yesterday in which the LA judge said that he was still uncertain whether the US had jurisdiction over the case. The next scheduled custody hearing has been postponed until July 9.
The Associated Press leads with the title “Kelly Rutherford’s children to spend summer in US” and is decidedly more positive about Rutherford’s chances of seeing her children for their regularly scheduled visit. They report that Rutherford and Giersch have been told by the court to work out plans so that the children can see their mother until the judge “determines if he [the US] has authority in the international custody dispute.”
People’s story claims that “Kelly has hit a roadblock.” Giersch’s lawyer has stated that his client wants his children to have a relationship with their mother. However Rutherford asserts that Giersch is not cooperating. A hearing will be held in Monaco on June 22, during which Giersch will attempt to have Monaco take jurisdiction over the case and could try to gain full custody of the children.
Here are some of Kelly and her lawyer’s statements on the latest setback. They gave extensive quotes to People and The AP following this postponement.
“I can’t imagine that the children won’t be permitted to come to the United States as they’ve done for the past two summers. But, so far, their father has not kept up his side of the deal, and I am concerned that he will try to further prevent me from spending time with them.
“I hope this is finally coming to an end, and my children will soon be coming home,” she wrote.
No decision has yet been made,” David J. Glass, the lawyer who represented Rutherford during Thursday’s tele-conference, said in a statement. “We believe strongly that the Monaco Court, which was improperly petitioned by Mr. Giersch, will ultimately recognize that its earlier actions in this matter have not substantially conformed with the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). We are also confident that once the California Court hears all the evidence, it will choose to continue to retain jurisdiction over the matter, and will order the children back to California. As Judge Juhas stated in his ruling on May 22, 2015, the children are only residents of the United States, and can never be citizens or residents elsewhere.”
“Ultimately this case is about the passage of time, and whether the fact that two American children lived abroad – under force of court order – for more than two years somehow transformed a temporary parental visit with their father into mandatory forced residency in a foreign nation,” Murphy told PEOPLE in a statement. “The obvious answer is, no. Indeed, the passage of time can only facilitate the children’s prompt return to this country because no court ever has authority to cause an American citizen child to be forced into exile from their own country.”
“It is disturbing that judges from two nations lack appreciation for the simplicity of this constitutional reality because involuntary expatriation was rendered unconstitutional by the Supreme Court decades ago, and for good reason,” she continued. “There is nothing more fundamental than the right to reside in one’s own country, especially this country – because the precious rights of American citizenship have no value on foreign soil.”
“My children were only two and five years old when they were sent to live in a foreign country. They were supposed to return after a temporary stay in France and Monaco, but more than two years is not temporary. I’ve flown back and forth over 70 times to be with our children,” Rutherford said in a statement Thursday. “The children’s father promised the California Court in 2012 that he would apply for a visa so he could be with the children here, but he has failed to do that. And since March of this year, he has prevented me from visiting our children at all. I hope this is finally coming to an end and my children will soon be coming home.”
[From People and The AP]
If Rutherford is telling the truth and if Giersch hasn’t allowed her to see the children since March, that’s not right at all, nor is his unwillingness to apply for another visa. Given the circumstances I understand somewhat. She was waging a federal battle against him at that time (which failed) and has given interviews constantly in the interim asserting her rights. I think it reached this point because Rutherford kept pushing her ex and fighting with him instead of trying to coparent, which is how her kids ended up in Monaco in the first place. However I don’t know their dynamic and there’s possibly more going on behind the scenes.
Meanwhile Rutherford has a new boyfriend, Tony Brand, the assistant general manager of Gucci. It looks like Rutherford took a page from Salma Hayek’s book of landing a monied executive of a luxury goods company. Rutherford has been posting pics of Brand on social media and took a pap walk with him in New York yesterday. The two kissed for the paps because of course they did.
@tonybrand325 #dress @LeeAndersonNYC #DC #earrings @chiarabcn1
A photo posted by @kellyrutherford on Apr 24, 2015 at 6:28pm PDT
A photo posted by @kellyrutherford on May 8, 2015 at 7:34am PDT
A photo posted by @kellyrutherford on Apr 29, 2015 at 8:07am PDT
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