I think everyone in the USA is aware of the case of little Sean Goldman, a kid born in the USA of a Brazilian mother, whose father David Goldman is trying to take him back to the USA.

There is probably a biased favouring the father - he is an American citizen, after all, and his former wife used a trip to Brazil to end their marriage.

However, her family has a different story to tell.  After what seemed to be a love story, his wife Bruna, after giving birth to their son, had to work to maintain the family, as David was unable (or unwilling) to find a steady job.  They also received financial assistance from her wealthy family in Brazil.  David said to Sean that his mother spent the day out because she didn't like him as much as he did.  Their marriage sank, and she decided to return to Brazil and apply for divorce. 

According to her family, David only called his son on his birthday and on Christmas (not a single time in the past two years), only asking for news by email.  His mother sent Sean gifts, but that was all.  The family bought him a plane ticket so he could come visit Sean, but he didn't.  He claims to have been to Brazil a few times, but he never tried to visit his son until today (they met this morning).

Bruna got married again and four years later she died after giving birth to a baby girl. Her widower applied for Sean's custody, as he had actually been the kid's father, emotionally and financially - Bruna never asked David for an alimony to provide for their son.  Bruna's family claims that only after her death David started to be really interested in having his son back. It's is relevant to mention that Bruna had a very good financial situation, owning four kids clothing stores (she was a fashion designer) and her son is naturally her heir, and this is what her family thinks that sparkled David's interest on his son now.

A friend of mine told me her father used to be an accountant of Bruna's family and has a very good concept of them.  She sent me a long letter from Bruna's widower telling their version of the whole thing.

I am not expecting anyone to take Bruna's family side on this story - and I personally am not taking any side - but I would only like to remember that there are two sides to be heard.  David Goldman is using the media on his behalf, so I decided to tell a bit of what the other side has to say.

Regards,
Adelaide

Today, by default, everything that each person owns before they marry remain personal assets, everything the couple acquire together belongs to both 50-50 (even if only one pays for that).  A couple may however opt for a different arrangement. 

I don't know what happens in the first case, but the children are heirs too for sure.  For example, when my father died, 50% went to my mother, 50% was shared between me and my brothers.  Until a child is 18, the remaining parent or another assigned tutor manages his share.

Regards,
Adelaide

Today, by default, everything that each person owns before they marry remain personal assets, everything the couple acquire together belongs to both 50-50 (even if only one pays for that).  A couple may however opt for a different arrangement. 

I don't know what happens in the first case, but the children are heirs too for sure.  For example, when my father died, 50% went to my mother, 50% was shared between me and my brothers.  Until a child is 18, the remaining parent or another assigned tutor manages his share.

What confuses me then is the idea that Goldman might want his son back for some financial gain, namely the clothing stores. If the stores are in Brazil, and Brazil recognizes the legal divorce and remarriage, isn't it likely that the son's share of the mother's business would be managed by either a family member in Brazil or the new husband, and not by Goldman? He'd have no claim or control over the kid's shares of the business, at least not in the eyes of the Brazilian government, as long as they recognize and uphold the legal divorce and the wife's 2nd marriage.

I don't know much about the case really, but I'm failing to see much reason to believe the family's claim of some sort of financial motivation in Goldman wanting to get his son back. I'm also not really believing their claims that the guy never tried to contact his son, or come to see him. It sounds like he has proof to the contrary (taped phone calls) and he appeared in Brazil for several court hearings over the years in attempts to get his son back. The family blocked every effort he made to contact his son, so it's not really a stretch to believe that they would prevent him from seeing his son while in Brazil.

I'd guess that both sides have been less than truthful and honorable in their claims. But it seems like there are a lot more holes in the family's story, and not so many in Goldman's. That plus the general legal rule of granting custody to a biological parent over anyone else as long as the parent is fit, leads me to want to side with Goldman.

I guess the financial gain would be having in hands any assets from the kid.  In the event of Sean being returned to his biological father (the normal thing, unless he is proven unable to provide for him or has some unacceptble behaviour such as drug addiction), he would either receive a periodical income from the stores or he would sell the stores (I think Bruna had a partner) and manage that money...

I doubt that. If Brazil recognizes the divorce and remarriage, they likely do not recognize the father as the kid's guardian and the person who would make decisions on his behalf. The way I see it, even if Goldman does get his son back and he is returned to the states, Brazil would not allow him any control over the stores. They would probably recognize the 2nd husband as the person making decisions for the son, so he would be more likely to have financial control over the stores. Not Goldman.

So I still don't see how Goldman could be doing this just for financial gain.

This is a very troublesome story indeed. I saw the dad on tv a few weeks back and at that time he had seen his son and they had some video of it I think but what you saw told you he hadn't seen his son until the 15th of March?

Now the story is widely known & political and very hard to know what actually has happened. Under normal circumstances you would expect the child to be automatically returned to his biological father so what are the ACTUAL issues I wonder? Why wouldn't he have been automatically reunited with his father after his mom was sadly lost? Only the actual parties will truly know.

Poor kid though.. hard enough to loose a parent without all this mess.

I don't see the association.  Why would the divorce have been rejected? The biological father has undeniable rights, unless there is something wrong with him.  I believe justice is however careful, because returning Sean to his father means a huge change in the kid's life - moving to another country, leaving what he recognizes as family.

I don't think the divorce would have been rejected. It just seems that if the Brazilian government was willing to approve a divorce in which a child was kidnapped from the country of his birth and his biological father, they would also likely favor the Brazilian family in matters of Bruna's estate. I really doubt that if Goldman showed up in Brazil and started trying to get money out of Bruna's business that he would be at all successful.

On top of that, there is the claim that the 2nd husband is attempting to get the Goldman name removed from birth records (which in itself confuses me since the birth records would be from the US, wouldn't they?) It just seems like the Brazilian government is more than accommodating with matters of the child and the Brazilian family, and are willing to ignore the rights of the biological father. So that leads me to believe they would be equally accommodating in matters of Bruna's estate, and would probably grant any decision-making powers held by the son over to the 2nd husband or family, long before they would ever give Goldman any rights to the estate.

The family is claiming that he has some sort of financial motivation in trying to get his son back, but I'm just not seeing how Goldman would ever be able to use his son to get any money. Could he still have bad intentions in all of this? Sure. I don't know what those intentions could be, but who really knows what they guy is thinking. I just feel like we can remove financial motivation from the list of possible motives, since it seems incredibly unlikely that Goldman would ever be able to parlay this whole mess into any financial gain for himself.

I think you are taking the position that the Brazilian law is unable to take a right decision...

Unable? No. Unwilling, maybe. I don't think there is anything wrong with the Brazilian government, just that in this case they are not taking the appropriate action. The biological parent is willing and able to care for the child, and so that is the way it should be. Bruna may have had a right to travel with the kid, but not keep him in Brazil away from his father permanently.

If the situation was flipped, I'd still be saying the same thing. If it was an American woman who travelled from Brazil to the US with a son by a Brazilian man, and the same circumstances took place, I'd say the son should be returned to his Brazilian father. And in the US, the courts would most likely rule in such a way and return the child to his father. Obviously there are differences in Brazilian law, but from where I stand the right and ethical thing to do is to place the child with a biological parent.

This is what I read here. I am no lawyer to say if all of these claims are valid.

Bruna divorced before getting married.  She got married about 3 years after she returned to Brazil and only after the divorce was acknowledged.  There is some kind of way you can formalize a marriage done in one country to make it valid in another, and theirs were like this.  This way, she was able to apply for divorce here, making the divorce also valid in the USA.

Bruna got pregnant of Sean when she lived in Italy and David in the USA, after meeting when he was in Italy and spending some time together in Canada or whatever.  She left her career as fashion designer in Italy to marry in the USA.  She claimed he was irresponsible, aggressive, uncaring and unwilling to sustain the family.  Thet slept in separate rooms.  She worked teaching Italian and received help from her family.  She obviously got fed up.  I don't know if she returned to Brazil with the idea of not returning, or if her family convinced her after she arrived. 

Sean is a USA and a Brazilian citizen, as he was registered in our embassy. I even read he was not registered in the USA, but I suppose this is not correct.  And it's not like he may apply for Brazilian citizenship because his mother was Brazilian, he IS Brazilian already.

I agree that his father should - and probably will - be granted his custody, UNLESS there are evidences against him regarding his conduct.  I don't know if there are such evidences.  There is a type of secrecy rule in processes regarding minors, so there may be evidences (from both sides, I guess) that should not be disclosed to the public on the child's behalf.  If the situation was not already traumatic for the kid, imagine having his name in the media, schoolmates pointing at him, etc.

As I said before, I'm only asking people to remember there are other claims, conflicting information, and that we have to be open to both sides.

PS: Racephoto, if the source of that information was David Goldman, his website or his lawyers, this is not independent...

Just a feedback, in case you haven't read about this. The Brazilian justice have granted Sean's custody to his father. There will be a 30-day adjustment period in the USA, in which he will first spend the days with his father and nights with his Brazilian grandparents, then he will move to his father and will have visits from his grandparents until the end of this period. I believe there will be some psychological evaluation afterwards and then the definitive custody will be granted.