[CubaNews] MH: Child custody case: Brother tells of mom's violence

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Wed, Aug. 29, 2007

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/218609.html

Child custody case: Brother tells of mom's violence
By CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE 

The 11-year-old boy was lying on the couch watching his favorite movie, 
The Black Stallion, when his mother, sobbing after an argument with her
estranged husband, went into the kitchen and picked up a knife.

Pointing at his wrist, the boy described what happened next: 'She started
doing bad things. I started running, and pushing her to get the knife out of
her hands. I said, `You don't have to do this. You have two reasons to fight
for.' She was saying, 'I don't care.' ''

The boy, now 13, was the first witness to testify Tuesday at a rancorous
custody trial over the fate of his 4-year-old half-sister. The case pits the
girl's father, Rafael Izquierdo, a Cuban farmer, against the girl's foster
parents, Coral Gables couple Joe and Maria Cubas.

State child-welfare lawyers say Izquierdo, who lives in Cuba, is unfit to
raise the girl because, among other things, he did nothing to protect her
when their mother, Elena Perez, beat her.

The boy testified that while he and his sister were living in Cuba, he told
Izquierdo -- who did not live with them -- that both he and his little
sister were frequent victims of their mother's violent moods. If lawyers
with the Department of Children & Families can convince Miami-Dade Circuit
Judge Jeri B. Cohen that Izquierdo abused, neglected or abandoned his
daughter, they will then request that she be allowed to live permanently
with the Cubas family.

Izquierdo, who is in the United States temporarily to take part in the case,
has said he wants to return to his Cuban village of Cabaiguán with the
youngster.

The Miami Herald is not identifying either child to protect their privacy.

ADOPTION AGREED

The boy and his half-sister, who arrived in Miami with their mother and
their stepfather in March 2005, were taken into the custody of DCF after
their mother attempted suicide. The boy was adopted by the Cubas family
after both his mother and father, who remains in Cuba, agreed to the
adoption. The stepfather left Perez and has since returned to the island.

The drama began in December 2005 when Perez, living hand-to-mouth, abandoned
by her husband and beset by emotional problems, took a kitchen knife to her
wrists. Her son testified he begged her to call police before ending her
life.

'I started crying, saying `Please stop. Stop,' '' the boy testified. 
'I said, `If you do this, please call the police first.' ''

Perez was involuntarily committed, and the state took the children.

Dressed in a blue polo shirt with green and white stripes, his black hair
cropped close, the boy was questioned in a small wood-paneled room by an
attorney for the Guardian-ad-Litem Program, John O'Sullivan. His testimony
was broadcast to a nearby courtroom through closed-circuit TV. Speaking in
English, his second language -- though occasionally reverting to Spanish --
the boy said Perez beat him daily for virtually no reason, and beat his
sister ``twice a day.''

The teen catalogued the myriad ways in which he said his mother mistreated
him and his sister: She hit him. She kicked him while he was on the ground.
She pulled the girl's hair. She hit him with a stick. She choked him. What
did the girl do to prompt such abuse, O'Sullivan asked him. ''She would cry.
She would talk to her back,'' the boy replied.

As the boy spoke, his court-appointed guardian-ad-litem, Andrea Steinacker,
gently stroked his back. A few times, she reached over and held the boy's
hand.

The teen described one incident in Miami when his mother became enraged that
he had inadvertently hit her with a cart he used to throw out the trash.

'She said, `Prepare yourself.' I was nervous because I thought I was going
to get beat up. She walked forward and hit me with a stick.''

Throughout most of the boy's testimony, Perez sat at her attorneys' table,
her head resting on her clasped hands, eyes down. A half hour after he began
testifying, she began to weep and was led out of the courtroom.

During a lunch break, surrounded by reporters outside the courthouse, she
tearfully read a poem she wrote as a plea to her son.

''One day you'll understand that a good mother is not an object, a toy, an
insignificant thing,'' she read in Spanish. ``One day you'll understand how
much I love you, adore you. One day you'll understand.''

Perez said she occasionally spanked her children, or slapped them, but that
her actions did not constitute the abuse described in court, calling her
son's statements an exaggeration. ''It's all lies,'' she said.

Later in the day, a DCF supervisor testified that his notes about the
agency's decision to take custody of the children did not mention any
concerns that they were being physically harmed by Perez.

''This was somewhat of a special conditions case,'' said Sam Reynolds, an
investigations supervisor who handled the case. Under questioning by
Izquierdo's attorney, he reviewed his casework notes, which have been
entered as evidence in the case. ``No one alleged abuse under this
particular incident that I can recall.''

The DCF attorneys maintain that Izquierdo should have known his daughter was
in peril, and was aware of Perez's mental state even before she left the
island with the children.

TOLD OF BEATINGS

During the boy's cross-examination by Ira Kurzban, Izquierdo's attorney, the
boy said he had told Izquierdo only once while living in Cuba that his
mother was routinely abusing him and his younger sister. He said several
members of his large extended family in Cuba knew of the beatings, as did
his teacher.

After the hearing, Izquierdo told reporters that the boy never told him
about any abuse.

At one point during the questioning, Kurzban asked the teen if he thought
Izquierdo loved the girl.

''I don't think so,'' the boy replied. ``He didn't pay attention to my
sister like I did. He wasn't there when my sister needed him. My sister got
hit really hard; he was supposed to be there.''

The boy said that while they lived in Cuba, Izquierdo visited perhaps twice
a month.

Questioned by Kurzban about how he feels about his mother, the boy said: 
``I don't want to kiss her. I don't want to get close to her.''

Speaking matter-of-factly, the teen later said any warm memories of his
mother were few and far between.

''In my life there were little times where she was lovely, she was
awesome,'' said the boy. ``But that was really small.''

As the boy's testimony came to an end, O'Sullivan asked him one final
question: If ``somewhere in your heart you have love for your mother.''

The boy's one-word response: ``Yes.''



To view the current thirty CubaNews messages:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/messages

If this message was forwarded to you, subscription details may be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

To unsubscribe from this CubaNews group, send an email to:
CubaNews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups. 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:CubaNews-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    mailto:CubaNews-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    CubaNews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/