Brazilian family agrees to give up legal fight, hand over boy to US father

Aide: Brazilian family giving up fight for US boy

RIO DE JANEIRO — The end seemingly in sight, David Goodman waited anxiously to see if the Brazilian relatives of his 9-year-old son obey a court order to turn over the boy Thursday and end a long, bitter struggle over custody.

The family said Wednesday it was dropping legal challenges to rulings giving custody to Goodman. But the New Jersey man said repeatedly that, until he was on a plane heading to the U.S. with Sean at his side, he would not feel relief.

Word of the family’s retreat came after a court ordered that the boy be delivered to the U.S. Consulate in Rio on Thursday morning.

Goldman’s fight against a powerful family of Rio de Janeiro lawyers — a David vs. Goliath matchup in a nation where the wealthy are used to coming out on top — shifted in recent months, legally and among ordinary Brazilians.

The case was once largely viewed through a nationalistic lens. But with Goldman’s persistent fighting it has come to be seen on talk shows and in neighborhood bars as a dad simply trying to be with his son.

Which is how Goldman has always framed it.

“Sean is my family, Sean is my son. It is our right to be together, not just a rule of law, not just a treaty, not he’s Brazilian, not he’s American, not he’s from anywhere. He’s my son and I should be able to raise my son and he should know his dad,” Goldman said this week.

Goldman, of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, won a big legal victory late Tuesday when Brazil’s chief justice upheld a lower court’s ruling that ordered Sean returned to him. Sean has lived in Brazil since Goldman’s ex-wife, Bruna Bianchi, brought him to her native country for what was supposed to be a two-week vacation in 2004.

Bianchi stayed, divorced Goldman and remarried, and Goldman began legal efforts to get back Sean.

Last year Bianchi died in childbirth. But her husband, Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, continued the legal fight, winning temporary custody. He looked prepared to keep Sean in the family’s huge compound with multiple buildings surrounded by tropical trees, a large wall and gate where expensive SUVs pass through and security guards keep 24-hour watch.

Lins e Silva, a prominent divorce attorney in his father’s family law firm, used all legal means available to keep the boy in Brazil. Despite numerous court rulings in favor of Goldman, Lins e Silva continuously found an appeal route that delayed a handover.

But those court battles are now over.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey congressman who has strongly supported Goldman for a year and is in Brazil with him, said Goldman’s lawyers believed Brazil’s federal police had authorization to seize the boy if the family missed the court’s deadline. He also said the international police agency Interpol had been notified to make sure Sean was not spirited out of the country by his Brazilian relatives.

Goldman declined to comment Wednesday, as did the Brazilian family’s attorney, Sergio Tostes, who referred all questions to his office.

An aide to Tostes said the legal fight was over. “It is certain the family will not pursue any more legal channels,” the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Despite that and the federal court order for the boy to be handed over, Smith said Goldman remained cautious.

“David is very guarded in his emotions because he had so many disappointments in his past … ,” Smith said. “He’s optimistic. He can’t wait to see his son and to be together for the rest of their lives.”

Goldman has seen his son only twice in the five years since the boy’s mother brought him to Brazil.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said a U.S. passport had been issued for Sean and delivered to his father in Brazil.

“Many people have been up through the night to provide support for the Goldman family, to maintain contact with the Brazilian government as we hopefully come to the end of this process,” Crowley told reporters.

Silvana Bianchi, Sean’s maternal grandmother, blamed her family’s loss on international pressure — in particular, the U.S. Senate’s delay in renewing a trade bill worth $2.75 billion a year to Brazil.

She lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court last week, petitioning that the boy’s own testimony about where he wanted to live be heard. That was denied Tuesday by Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes.

“He is really sad, he doesn’t want to go,” she told the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo. “Gilmar Mendes stripped him of his right to expression, to open his mouth and say he doesn’t want to go. In his own country, he’s not respected. Here, he’s under a gag rule.”

Goldman contends his son has been under undue pressure from his Brazilian family for the past five years.

Associated Press Writers Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel, New Jersey; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo; and AP Television News producer Flora Charner and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.