Bucci & Dix

International Child Custody Ruling

A panel of Brazilian judges ruled that a boy, taken from the United States by his mother in 2004, must be returned to his American father.  The boy's mother took him to Brazil in 2004 for what was supposed to have been a 2 week vacation.  However, she later obtained a Brazilian divorce and remarried.  The boy's father has been seeking his son's return under an international treaty covering child abductions.  Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barak Obama have called for the child's return, and the case has made headlines for international child custody disputes.