A Convicted Felon – International Parental Kidnapper – Not Charged for Passport Fraud
Dorthy Lee Barnett plead guilty for Felony Child Concealment and was sentenced to prison. The prosecutor should have not allowed her to plead her charges down. She is now trying to market story as some type of American Hero that took on the USA and won. How could she have won if she went to prison.
It also sounds like she actually thinks Hollywood might be interested in a movie of her pathetic story. These stories of underground moms have been done before with not much interest. She was spared by the prosecutor in not charging her with the passport charges that should have sent her to prison for 20 years.
We think the only thing that is interesting about her story was that it seems very obvious that her now adult child has Stockholm Syndrome. If any movie is done, the title should be Stockholm Syndrome.
For Federal Prosecutors and Local District Attorneys prosecuting these cases, this should now serve as notice that they must fully prosecute these truly heinous crimes against innocent children.
We’ve always felt that our Parental Kidnapping Laws should be changed to a maximum of 18 years in prison. For every year a child is kidnapped from the custodial parent, the kidnapper should spent the same number of years behind bars.
Family Abduction Watch 
I watched the 48 hour episode on this case. Ordinary I would have sympathy for the father but in this case I can’t help but say “serves you right”. It is pretty obvious she doesn’t have any violent mental illness and to manufactor that to get even with your ex wife is discusting. The daughters interests were not considered. It was all about power and control. I imagine myself in her situation just given birth and this man thinks he is going to take my baby away from me. In lee’s case she got to see her daughter once a fortnight. How agonising that must of been. For this woman to leave everything her country, family,friends and money shows how desperate she must of been. He still wants her to suffer. He wanted lee to be in jail for 20 years. He is truly an evil man. If he continues trying to get even and be in control of his ex he will lose his daughter.
Joanne, I can imagine that our Dot’s “48 hour” episode was one of her finest performances. How much do you reckon she raked in? Was it tax-free?
I can see from your comment that you truly felt for her. You mention “agonising”. I know that it is sometimes “agonising” for the odd Maori or Pacific Islander lad who may have been a person of interest to the New Zealand Constabulary and who have rocked up to an Australian entry point having forgotten to tick the appropriate box on their entry paperwork. Our Dot just waltzed straight on in on a New Zealand passport falsely-acquired deliberately choosing not to tick that box. She also entered New Zealand on falsely-acquired documentation as well.
Joanne, she was very leniently dealt with, especially considering her wrong-doings and how much she cost the Australian taxpayer. That enormous waste of taxpayer money keeping her at Her Majesty’s Pleasure and extraditing her could have been put to better use assisting the Australian poor or the Australian homeless. And, this does not include all the benefits she would have received in Australia at quite possibly a needy person’s expense.
How would you feel if what happened to Mr Todd happened to you, Joanne? My sympathies are with the long-suffering Mr Todd. No price can be put on his loss.
On the subject of long-suffering, I – along with the rest of Australia – had to put up with Dot’s Sunshine Coast buds trotting out Mr Todd’s daughter on all the media outlets and all the other related propaganda trickery that occurred, in the hope of keeping the illegal in my country.
Next you will be thinking that you can convince me that the daughter hasn’t been brainwashed.
So, you’re going to believe what a woman says in an edited and biased interview and make a judgment on her mental status because of it?
You take the word of a young adult that has severe Parental Alienation Syndrome and Stockholm Syndrome that she was never violent for granted?
I don’t know if she was or not, all I know is that children from alienating mothers will praise them as goddesses, whereas children from regular mothers will have issues with them, complain about them, talk about all their quirks and love them regardless, because we moms are only human.
Samantha talks about her mom as an epitome of perfection, as never having had any fault whatsoever, as the biggest hero in American history, and that by itself should tell you something doesn’t fit right.
You hope this guy loses his daughter forever? he did. He has nothing else to lose. I don’t believe he is a saint, and we all know that the family law industry in this country is a broken system. But running away and deciding on your own what to do, and most important, disregarding completely the importance of the father in the lives of your children is despicable. It is a disservice to all men and women fighting every day to have the right to see their children, having to meet impossible burdens of proof just to have a supervised visitation because of a crooked GAL, judge or even representative, and it actually makes that custody order (that was totally appealable and was never permanent) look actually very correct.
That’s the point Adela. I don’t think she had the capacity to do this on her own. She had a lot of help from Faye Yager and she should be in jail too.
I don’t know what to make of the Mom’s mental health status, but I see a couple of red flags. One is that the doc’s eval provided by the Dad does not diagnose bipolar disorder–but rather falling on that spectrum. Mom comes back with rule out diagnoses related to bipolar–an over-reaction at best. As always, we, as the watching public, don’t know all of what the judge was looking at. I am skeptical that a child would be placed in the sole custody of one parent based only on that diagnosis. Likely there were other considerations. Certainly the videos that she left behind with friends–viewed in context–strike one as being a bit over the top. More giddy than terrified–communicating triumph, not fear of being harmed, or controlled.
When listening to the daughter, however, I wonder if Stockholm Syndrome is truly an appropriate description. Victims of Stockholm Syndrome typically are removed from an environment and won over to a series of false beliefs/alliances based on their dependency on their captor. Patty Hearst, for instance, came to believe that her family had stopped looking for her and that she was in constant peril should law enforcement know of her location. In the case of Savannah/Samantha, it would seem as though what happened was even more insidious, as it was a corruption of the normal bonding experience. Bonding with her mother followed a normal course. But, she was fed a wholly false narrative about who she was and who her father was. Presumably the man who stepped in to the father role was fed and believed a similarly false narrative.
One hopes that at some point this young woman will seek help in sorting out who she is and how she relates to her mother as well as her father. I suspect that she has a good deal in common with many adult adoptees–who frequently experience conflict about their desire to seek information about their biological roots.
Apparently you haven’t looked into this. I’ve only just seen it today and found that her decision was based on his not wanting any children ever; with witness corroboration….and the breaking point–she picked her daughter up with a witness and found her bleeding from the nose and by her mouth….hospital records exist. Then the poor father finally meets his long lost daughter and doesn’t give her the hug he so earnestly professed he longed for but instead shook her hand. The retired judge that accompanied his daughter was shocked that, instead of asking about Her life, he spent two and half hours showing his daughter his accomplishments. As far as I know he hasn’t seen her since.
Please spend more time looking into this before commenting. Father wanting baby aborted…left her once because she refused.Hospital record with signs of abuse by father; Mother THEN leaves. Father sees her for first time and shakes her hand instead of promised hug; Judge that accompanied Samantha said father spent over two hours showing off his accomplishments. ..very little interest in her?
Steve, the father is an Ivy League Yale graduate. Dorothy was a college drop out and airline attendant. We did spend many hours looking at this case. What would have been so bad about coparenting in this case? The child was so young at the time. No parents deserves what happened to this father and his Ivy College legacy daughter. Charleston, South Carolina is often voted as one of the top destinations in America. You sound a bit ignorant as to the plight of victims of International Family Abduction as well as Stockholm Syndrome. Someday you may have children or grandchildren and what if they were kidnapped?
There is never any moral or legal excuse for a parental kidnapping. The mother in this case should have got 20 years in prison. This father showed more compassion than he should have. It’s the daughter’s loss that she doesn’t have a relationship with her father.
Someday as you gain more life experience, you will begin to understand this issue. It’s you that needs to spend more time looking into this.
There will be no American Movie for Dorothy Lee Barnett. Maybe she should try and on the Jerry Springer Show.
I don’t know if I’m more appalled that the initial blog post or this comment. It should mean absolutely nothing that the father is an Ivy League Yale graduate. I would rather have a parent who cleans toilets on minimum wage, who protects and loves me than a Yale graduate that wanted me aborted and allowed me to be covered in bruises. Yet, apparently it’s the daughters loss that she doesn’t have a relationship with her father. Surely the child’s safety is paramount. The mother believed this was being compromised and did everything she could to protect her child.
Alexandra, you are a little ignorant. Yale is listed in U.S. News and World Reports and the #3 University in America. This child is a legacy to this University. That means something in America. Any parent could make up allegations during a custody dispute and kidnap their child for 20 years. In these cases, kidnapping is never a “reasonable legal alternative”. If you want to claim the “Necessity Defense”, then the parent must exhaust their legal remedies before fleeing. Dorothy Lee Barnett did not. She had many other legal remedies and in her case the motive was more likely “anger and revenge”. The child’s paternal grandmother was also a well respected nurse in the community and I understand she was one of the caretakers for the child. I don’t think the mother matched up very well to the paternal grandmother which might have been an additional motive.
The mother in this case was very young and was a college dropout. I believe she was accused of drinking and partying while she was pregnant. There are some that would consider this a form of child abuse.
If your father and mother cleaned toilets and you got into Yale, that would also mean something. But that doesn’t sound like the case. When you become a parent go through a custody dispute someday, you certainly wouldn’t want your divorcing spouse to run off with your child for 20 years. That’s the real story here. I do appreciate your post as it minimizes the International Family Abduction Crime. Somehow, you are unable to comprehend this.
Australia doesn’t have a Missing Children’s Clearinghouse like America does (ncmec.org). In addition, Australia doesn’t allow the photos of children involved in custody disputes to be in the media. I believe its one of the only countries like that. I often wonder if those laws were different, if this child would have been found sooner. If that were the case, then maybe this child would have been able to follow the legacy of her dad.
You are correct it is the child’s loss. But how painful it must be for the father not to have a relationship with his daughter.
Alexander, spend time in the corridors and waiting rooms of Family Law Courts. It doesn’t matter whether it is your country, my country or another country. The reality is there are no winners. Everyone involved in Family Court action experiences some varying degree of loss. There are no greater losers than the children caught up in these matters, Mr Todd’s daughter included despite her protestations to the contrary.
Mr Todd’s daughter can say whatever, believe whatever or puts up barriers to whatever in this matter. This young lady is as much a victim as is her father to her mother’s unlawful conduct. It is in the fullness of time that Mr Todd’s daughter will feel and understand her loss of missing out on a relationship with her father and her paternal family.
Alexander, just because Ms Barnett, her daughter or Ms Barnett’s support base have fine-tuned churning out the spin and propaganda, it doesn’t make their spewforths reality. It is a given that Ms Barnett would have been devastated by the Court outcome, as would every other parent in a similar situation. Most people don’t then take the law into their own hands. Instead, they look for ways to appeal decisions or work towards changing behaviours to put themselves in more positive positions to regain custody.
Ms Barnett’s law-breaking continued until she was finally apprehended in my country which she entered and lived in via falsely-acquired New Zealand citizenship. Once apprehended and as a non-Australian citizen, she fought extradition at great expense to the Australian public purse. Once returned to the US, no doubt to lessen the length of her custodial sentence, she pleaded guilty. Innocent people do not plead guilty.
Ms Barnett purposefully and calculatingly took the law into her own hands and continued to do so until her apprehension. But, she was rewarded for her unlawfulness with a lenient custodial sentence for the ‘napping, and so far has got away with acquiring false New Zealand citizenship, false passports and false entry to a number of countries. Had the now-deceased Mr Geldenhuys still have been alive, he too would have been held accountable for his unlawful conduct – concealing the identity of Savannah Todd and assisting Ms Barnett to enter and live in countries illegally.
This woman is no role model, Alexander.
Steve, your bud pleaded guilty and received a custodial sentence. Her two adult children will continue to pay the price for their mother’s wrong-doings, more so because they still choose to gullibly swallow their mother’s lies.
Will Dot be allowed to live in Australia again? Probably not. Why is that? Well, she was extradited. In addition, she entered Australia illegally on falsely-acquired New Zealand citizenship. Furthermore, she received a custodial sentence in excess of 12 months, making it highly unlikely that she would pass the Australian character test for entry into Australia.
What should Dot do? It would be in her best interests to remain law-abiding for the rest of her life. And, apologise to her daughter’s father for her despicable conduct.
Oh bull Steve.
No evidence other than the lying mother stating the father wanted the baby aborted. And explain the custody battle if that were the case. Or the 19 year search for the child. You really have been taken in by the mother. Who also took the baby to two different doctors who stated there was no abuse. The mother also got the fake passport prior to the injury. Please spend some time learning facts and less on being gullible.
And the person who was supposed to be “supervising” Dorothy should be charged as a co-conspiritor.