American father desperate to get 2-year-old son home from Ukraine

Russia was massing troops on the border with Ukraine when an significantly desperate Cesar Quintana went to the U.S. embassy in Kyiv in December to plead for a passport for his toddler son, who had been kidnapped from their Southern California home a yr previously by his Ukrainian-American mother.

Quintana received a U.S. court buy demonstrating he had sole legal custody of 2-year-outdated Alexander. He was granted the passport, bought aircraft tickets and a few days afterwards headed to the airport for a flight property.

Cesar Quintana and his son Alexander. Quintana reported he is seeking to get his son out of Ukraine, the place he was taken by his mother in 2020 with no his permission. Courtesy of Angel Quintana via AP

But they by no means boarded the plane. Police who he stated were being summoned by Alexander’s Ukrainian grandmother – the mom of Quintana’s estranged wife – ordered the boy be turned in excess of to her.

Now, 3 months afterwards, Ukraine is ravaged by war. The town of Mariupol the place Alexander has been living with his mom at his grandmother’s home is beneath siege. Quintana, who is back again in the U.S., has dropped contact with them and is so distraught he’s thinking about going into the war zone to obtain his son.

“I am inclined to do almost everything and just about anything,” Quintana instructed The Related Push. “I just want my son to be back.”

Quintana, 35, explained he last spoke with Alexander more than FaceTime on March 2. He explained he sent cash to his estranged spouse, Antonina Aslanova, for provides but never ever heard back again.

Communications have been disrupted throughout Mariupol due to the fact of the Russian bombardment, which this week incorporated an airstrike that blew aside a theater remaining applied as a bomb shelter by hundreds of civilians. Tens of 1000’s have fled the city, and an unfamiliar number have been killed.

Initiatives by the AP to attain Aslanova had been not productive. Electronic mail and LinkedIn messages were not returned. She at present does not have a law firm in the little one custody situation in California, and a U.S. cellular phone number she supplied the courtroom wasn’t operating. A concept was still left on yet another cell phone mentioned underneath her title.

Andrew Klausner, who was Aslanova’s divorce law firm when she formerly sought and was denied a restraining purchase against Quintana, claimed he hadn’t had get in touch with with her given that the drop of 2020 and did not know she experienced left the state.

Quintana has set up a web page about his plight and traveled to Washington, D.C., this 7 days to test to get members of Congress to help and to ask Ukrainian diplomats in the nation’s cash for authorization to enter their place.

The Point out Section declined to comment on the scenario, but wrote in a Feb. 15 letter to California U.S. Rep. Lou Correa’s office environment that when Quintana attempted to acquire his son back to his Orange County residence in December he didn’t have the consent of the boy’s mother, nor acceptance from Ukrainian authorities overseeing the custody struggle there.

“Although a still left-at the rear of parent in the United States may possibly have custody or visitation rights pursuant to a U.S. custody buy, that buy might not be valid and enforceable in the place in which the kid is positioned,” wrote April Conway, the department’s department chief for the business of children’s difficulties.

The letter also stated Condition Office officials were asking Ukrainian officials why a essential February court hearing on the boy’s circumstance was delayed until late March.

Global parental child abduction cases are elaborate, and advocates say fairly several of the kids taken from their nations of home are returned. But the challenges are even additional difficult for Quintana’s son given that the embassy in Kyiv is shut mainly because of the war and the Point out Office has mentioned it can guide American citizens with consular solutions the moment they depart Ukraine and get to yet another region.

Noelle Hunter, co-founder of the iStand Guardian Network, claimed her group wants to attract focus to Quintana’s circumstance so U.S. federal government officers and nonprofit groups can move in quickly at the time the combating subsides. Hunter’s daughter was taken to war-torn Mali, and she was ready to deliver her household with assist from U.S. officers in 2014.

A lot of of the particulars of Alexander’s circumstance are spelled out in a September letter from Orange County deputy district attorney Tamara Jacobs to Ukrainian officials.

Alexander was abducted in December 2020 as Quintana and Aslanova had been divorcing, according to the letter. Quintana was granted custody of Alexander just after she was arrested for investigation of driving less than the impact.

Quintana said he permitted Aslanova to go to their son at his dwelling as Quintana recovered from gall bladder surgical procedure. He mentioned he fell asleep and when he woke in the afternoon she and Alexander were being long gone.

Quintana texted Aslanova and reported she was not authorized to go away with the boy she responded they were being at a retail outlet. Quintana identified as law enforcement, who the next day informed him Aslanova and Alexander experienced gotten on a flight to Turkey and then to Ukraine, according to the district attorney’s office, which charged her with baby abduction.

In March 2021, a California spouse and children law judge ordered that Alexander be returned. “The courtroom dominated that there had been no exigent situations for mother to have taken the baby and the having was wrongful,” Jacobs wrote in the letter.

The very same thirty day period, Aslanova filed a declaration with the court docket in her DUI scenario indicating she experienced no ideas to return to the United States.

Meantime, Quintana acquired a visa and traveled to Ukraine, the place he hired a law firm to try out to get his son returned. Quintana reported he had remained in contact with Aslanova, delivered financial aid to her spouse and children and as soon as in Ukraine was authorized visits with the boy.

Quintana said he tried using to encourage Aslanova to permit him consider their son back again to California and that she should also return to experience her authorized difficulties. He explained all through a November cellphone get in touch with she finally consented and instructed him that her mom, who experienced been caring for their son, would carry Alexander to him at his Mariupol resort.

As quickly as he had the boy, they still left in a car or truck for Kyiv. Quintana said he was stopped by police twice on the 14-hour journey. Authorities confirmed he was the boy’s father and allowed them to carry on but took their American passports.

In Kyiv, Quintana went to the U.S. Embassy to get new passports. He claimed officers there demanded much more than a temporary custody get to challenge a passport for the boy, so he wrote to the spouse and children court in California searching for an buy for the document. He mentioned he was anxious about a probable Russian invasion.

“If this comes about, I am fearful Alexander and I will not be safe and American flights to Ukraine will be cancelled for an unknown interval of time,” Quintana wrote. An purchase was created and the passport issued.

He and Alexander spent Xmas alongside one another and built options to fly back again to the United States just before the new year. He stated he spoke with Aslanova by cellphone and she questioned him not to go away her guiding.

But Aslanova’s mother, he claimed, didn’t want the boy to go and submitted a criticism versus Quintana with Mariupol law enforcement. He claimed she accompanied police when they stopped him at the Kyiv airport. Law enforcement showed him a document written in Ukrainian – which he does not realize – and threatened to arrest him if he did not turn above the boy or girl, Quintana reported. His son became distraught, Quintana explained, so he gave him to his grandmother to keep away from more tension on the boy.

Quintana supplied a copy of the law enforcement document to the AP, which enlisted a translator to browse it. The doc alleged Quintana took the boy from his Mariupol lodge in late November without permission from the child’s mother and identified as for an investigation to ascertain whether or not Quintana was lawfully authorized to consider the boy.

As he turned about his son, Quintana claimed he kissed Alexander and advised him: “Bye for now, son, but I won’t give up. I’ll convey you dwelling.”

Quintana mentioned his Ukrainian attorney told him the document was a pretense to block him from leaving. He said he remained in Ukraine right until late January but left when he was denied a visa extension. He claimed he had hoped to get his son again immediately after an international parental youngster abduction hearing scheduled for February but it was postponed to March.

Then war broke out. Quintana’s Ukranian law firm now is in the army battling the Russians.

Quintana claimed he’s keen to do nearly anything to convey Alexander to the U.S. He explained he told Aslanova he’d aid her with a lawyer for her DUI scenario if she returns. He explained he’d even assist sponsor her mother so she could be a part of her in America.

He options to get a ticket to Poland upcoming week and may possibly try to enter Ukraine from that neighboring state.

“I am not genuinely absolutely sure what I am heading to do, but I just want to be there near if an prospect presents itself for him to go away the nation,” he claimed.

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