Mothers: Family Court Deny You Custody Of Your Child? Travel To Costa Rica.

by Forbes Patricia Fersch Contributor

Travel Magazines Promote Travel to Costs Rica

Travel Glossies promote travel to Costa Rica because of its National Parks, Volcanoes, Hummingbird Capital of the World, Adventures, Beaches, World Class Resorts, Coffee, Cacique Guaro, Proximity and the overall happiness and friendliness of its people.

I don’t contribute to Forbes as an expert on travel.  This article isn’t about the reasons to travel to Costa Rica for tourism. I traveled to Costa Rica to assist a father for whom I had litigated custody of his then six year old son in the United States against claims of child sexual abuse made by the child’s mother and won in court here only to find the mother and child (after an exhaustive search) had violated a court order to return the child to the father and traveled with the child to Costa Rica.

Hague Convention Circumvention

I write about Family Law. This article is about women and child custody and Costa Rica. Costa Rica has an enormously powerful and very active women’s group, INAMU (Institut Nacional del a Mujeres), with standing to appear in any Court proceeding including a Hague Convention custody proceeding. The Hague Convention is a treaty signed by the United States and Costa Rica and 83 other countries and 1 regional economic organization regarding custody of children removed from their home state.

[Read more on Forbes.com]

Editors Note January 2021: There are a number of United States parental kidnapping cases in which the mother fled to Costa that were supported by INAMU (Institut Nacional del a Mujeres) and PANI in Costa Rica. In our three decades of covering these protective parent cases, we have never encountered case where the abducting mother had any reasonable legal justification for kidnapping her child(ren). We have also seen the involvement of the cast of characters as documented on this site like disbarred attorney Barry Goldstein. This includes: Genevieve Kelley, Trinia Atwell-Chavarria, Nicole Kater and Chere Lyn Tomayko. Under United States Ambassador Sharon Day, the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica has done very little support the Hague Convention and to ensure these parental kidnappers were extradited to the rightful jurisdiction of these Family Law Custody Cases. With the change of the United States Presidency in January 2021, it is the hope of the International Family Abduction Community that a more effective United States Ambassador be appointed to the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.

Convicted Parental Kidnapper Released from Jail

Genevieve Kelley – Photo: NH1 file photo

Genevieve Kelley, was released from jail on February 17, 2016. She plead guilty in June to custodial interference for kidnapping her child to Honduras. The District Attorney in New Hampshire dropped the Felony custodial interference and witness tampering charges. The former doctor was not charged with any Federal Crimes.

Kelley’s second husband also plead guilty to custodial interference and served jail time. There were no other third parties charged with aiding and abetting in this crime.

Editor’s Note:

To this date, the kidnapped child who is now an adult has not yet been reunified with her searching family. I believe that doctors should be held to a higher standard and Genevieve Kelley should have been sentenced to prison for a much longer period. The District Attorney in New Hampshire may have saved the taxpayers the expense of a trial but in our opinion, should have done more. This outcome does not acknowledge the emotional trauma and abuse inflicted on parentally kidnapped children. It is an insult to the Family Abduction Community and the plight of searching parents. It wrongfully encourages protective moms to kidnap their child until they turn eighteen. The fact that the Kelleys have still not encouraged a reunification should invalidate the plea agreement. Genevieve and Scott Kelley are essentially still kidnapping this now adult child who most likely has Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t believe there has been a recent independent psychiatric evaluation of the victim adult child since she was found. In this case, the New Hampshire criminal legal system did not serve justice for any of the victims. With upcoming potential trials in Minnesota, Texas, New York, California and Utah — I hope those states do a better job.

Breaking: Download Mark Nunes Witness Statement on 10 Year Kidnapping of Mary Nunes

On June 17, 2015, Genevieve Kelley and Scott Kelley plead guilty for the horrific 10 year kidnapping of Mary Nunes. In these International Family Abduction Trials, the victim parent’s story is rarely told in the media because the prosecuting U.S. Attorney or District Attorney does not encourage any statements by the victim to the media.

In the last two decades, we have read a number of these witness statements at the criminal trial sentencing hearings. For those that followed the Genevieve & Scott Kelley Criminal prosecution, this witness statement finally provides the horrible details about the conduct of the defendants in this case.

Mark Nunes is a Pediatrician and Geneticist now living in California and has a loving family with children. After reading his testimony, you have to wonder how the defendants did not get a longer sentence for their 10 year crime.

We really hope that Mark’s daughter Mary Nunes will show some compassion for her father and read this document. Mary Nunes has a legal right to read this document. The court has ordered that Genevieve Kelley and Scott Kelley must not interfere with her right to read it. If that occurs, Mary should contact her attorney.

Download Mark Nunes Witness Statement

Download Sentencing of State of New Hampshire vs. Genevieve Kelley
Superior Court Case No. 215-2005-CR-0202

Judge Considering Reporting Alan Rosenfeld
to State Professional Conduct Committee
Read the Transcripts

Genevieve Kelley Finally Incarcerated Again – In Jail Where She Belongs

Genevieve Kelley Back to Jail

Geneveive Kelley is finally back in jail on September 7, 2015 to serve a 10 month sentence in Jail for the 10 year kidnapping of her daughter. Kelley reported to Grafton County Correctional Facility.

For the next 10 months, Genevieve Kelly will be behind bars where she rightfully belongs. It is unfortunate that our legal system did not hold this former doctor to a higher standard like we sometimes do to professional athletes and celebrities. It appears that the New Hampshire legal system was not capable of successfully prosecuting Genevieve Kelley. It is also unfortunate that her protective parent legal attorneys were able to spoon feed the media including People Magazine, the Boston Globe with factually incorrect inflammatory information and innuendo. The journalists in this new era of journalism more or less printed every press release from the defendant and her legal counsel without any unbias investigation.

The victim is this adult-child that is the victim of this horrible crime against a child. After this crime, our legal system has not yet reunified her with her custodial parent and his family. That’s really sad that the Kelleys are able to fully alienate this young adult against her biological family. The Kelleys should have been charged with child abuse — hopefully our justice system will ensure they are never around young children again.

Why Parent’s shouldn’t Kidnap their Children – Genevieve Kelley Still Begging for Money

Genevieve and Scott Kelley and their supporters appear to be still asking donors to give them money on their Facebook page. This is insulting for two convicted parental kidnappers to be promote themselves as victims. Because of their actions, they caused the State of New Hampshire and the U.S. Government to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Had they merely abided by the court order and taken the young child to clinic for evaluation, then they wouldn’t be in this situation today.

If they need money, then they can’t be adequately caring for their 19 year old adult child that was their admitted victim in their parental kidnapping conviction. I understand unlike in other cases, the adult child is yet to reunify with her biological father.

It’s apparent that we need new legislation for the International Parental Kidnapping Crime to not only deter others from committing this crime but to ensure that the victim child is properly cared for upon recovery. If there is any lesson learned from the 10 year kidnapping of the child, that’s one of them. I would think the other is what not to do.

A child vanishes: A mother is slapped on the wrist – An Outrage says the Union Leader

Here’s an Editorial from the New Hampshire Union Leader on the Genevieve and Scott Kelley Plea Deal.

The plea deal in the case of Genevieve and Scott Kelley is an outrage.

In 2004, Genevieve was in the midst of a custody dispute with Mark Nunes. Both wanted custody of their then-8-year-old daughter Mary Nunes. Before the legal process was completed, Genevieve, along with Scott Kelley, took Mary and fled, leaving an unsubstantiated accusation of sexual abuse against Mark Nunes, a claim law enforcement officials do not believe.

Instead of experiencing the joys of raising a child, Mark Nunes (who was granted legal custody in December of 2004) was made to endure a decade separated from his daughter. She was forcibly and illegally taken from him and hidden away until an adult, enduring who knows what emotional and psychological trauma of her own.

For this, Genevieve and Scott Kelley have been sentenced to a year in county jail as part of a deal in which they agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor, rather than felony, interference with custody. Genevieve must serve at least 10 months, Scott at least five. They get credit for time served awaiting trial.

How is this even remotely just? – See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150619/OPINION01/150618931#sthash.mDAU8ciD.dpuf

Breaking: Kidnappers Genevieve and Scott Kelley are Guilty

Genevieve Kelley

Scott David Kelley

So in the end, Genevieve and Scott Kelley more or less admitted in court today by their guilty plea that they made up the allegations against the 8 year old child’s biological father. The Kelleys had not only kidnapping the girl, witness tampering but not properly taking care of the child. If they had any reasonable justification for committing their, they would have never pleaded guilty. The Kelleys  kidnapped a child for ten years and have now plead guilty for their horrific crimes against an innocent child. They deprived the child’s biological father, his family and numerous step siblings of a relationship with the child. In addition, as part of the plea agreement Genevieve Kelley agreed to not interfere or impede with the child having contact with her paternal family. Genevieve Kelley was guilty of two counts of Interference with Custody and sentenced to 2 years in jail (14 months is suspended upon good behavior for 5 years). She will be incarcerated beginning September 7, 2015.

For Scott Kelley, he was sentenced to 12 months in jail (7 months suspended). He will be incarcerated starting June 22, 2015. Scott Kelley was ordered to make restitution of $2,288.98. He too agreed to not to interfere or impede from the child having contact with her paternal family.

It’s not surprising to hear that the narcissist Genevieve Kelley plead guilty, because she was guilty. She did a horrible thing by kidnapping her child from her biological father and as a doctor should have known better. Scott Kelley also knew what he was doing but it sounds like he too wanted the vacation to Central America with the biological child’s father as a form of revenge for the ongoing custody dispute. Genevieve Kelley should have taken her child to Maine to the Spurwink Clinic and complied with the court order. She should not have tarnished the reputation of this Clinic and gone ten years on the lam from her strenuous small town practice of medicine to the gorgeous beaches of Central America. She should never practice medicine again in this or any other country and should certainly as a kidnapper both of them should never be around children.

It is apparent that the media, especially the controversial People Magazine Reporter Elaine Aradillas got played in this case. She took the spood-fed information from protective parent attorney Alan Rosenfeld thinking the Kelleys had legal justification for their crime. Instead, it was all a publicity event and a protest against New Hampshire Family Law Court System.

Genevieve Kelley has also been ordered to undergo psychological evaluation. I wonder if that evaluation would diagnose her with munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, that is frequently associated with those that kidnap their child. Or will the evaluation determine that she will not and never will adhere to the terms of her probation and sentencing.

I would really like to see the adult child in this case contact her biological father and step mother to begin the reunification process with her father. If Genevieve and Scott Kelley didn’t admit they made up the allegations and implanted those alleged disclosures in a child with special needs, then they would have never agreed to the plea.

It is also time for the Coos County Citizens, the Kelley Family, the Friends of Genevieve Kelley to be responsible for ensuring that the adult-child is reunified with her biological father and his family. What the Kelleys did to this child is horrible and inexcusable. What they did to the child’s biological father is horrific by attacking his good reputation. These individuals must show some compassion and be held accountable for their support of the Kelleys.

I would also like to see some of the members of the media take responsibility for their part in reporting on a story like this. It was irresponsible journalism for Elaine Aradillas to interview this special needs adult-child and Aradillas should be fired by People Magazine. Even in Elaine Aradillas recent interview spoon-fed story, she omits the part of the plea agreement that the Kelleys not impede with the biological father’s relationship with the adult-child. Did she even read the plea agreement on the State of New Hampshire Court Site or just print what Alan Rosenfeld told her?

Genevieve Kelley, Scott Kelley and Alan Rosenfeld, clearly manipulated the media and eventually plead guilty to this crime. In my opinion, they wasted the court’s time and resources. This was more of a public protest and publicity event than a legal defense.

Finally, I’m not convinced anyone in Hollywood or a Book Publisher would ever be interested in a story like this where the defendants plead guilty. It’s really the case of two parents kidnapping a child and abusing a special needs child. NO child deserves to be kidnapped for ten years. And any parent that does this to a special needs child is no protective parent. Scott and Genevieve Kelley really deserved a day in a Federal Prison for every day they kidnapped this child.

Expert Witness – Dr. Ronald Minson – Did Genvieve Kelley go Therapist Shopping in Denver?

Dr. Ronald B. Minson – Was he paid for a False Report?

In past protective parent trials, the protective mother usually goes therapist shopping to get a professional to issue the report that she wants. These reports are rarely used as direct evidence in an on-going Family Court Ordered Evaluation but are used to setup the parental kidnapping. In addition, the protective parent defendant almost always finds a supporter that is close to retirement. It appears that the expert witness or doctor that provided the report in the Kelley Case is the 76 year old Dr. Ronald B. Minson of Denver, Colorado.

Before the Kelley Trial is to begin next month, we wanted to see if we could find any information on Dr. Ronald B. Minson. Here is a review we found on vitals.com from 2010:

“Dr. Minson is the type of person to create distrust in the medical field. He is so obviously interested in making money over anything else. He actually diagnosed my child over the phone with a serious condition so that we would have the auditory and physical therapy. As if that was not expensive enough, he convinced me to try this equally expensive metaphysical quantum physics liquid. I was trying anything he said out of desperation. A few thousand dollars later, he denied the original diagnosis and downgraded it to a minor condition. As it turns out, my child has a serious biochemical imbalance and I was out of money to get him properly treated. How this quack can sleep at night is beyond me. He shakes nervously because I believe he knows he is taking advantage of people. Beware!” — by Frustrated former client on Oct 13th, 2010

Dr. Minson appears to specialize in Listening Systems therapy. He doesn’t appear to have specialty in cases involving high conflict divorces and abuse allegations. Nevertheless, in this article published by azcentral.com Search for girl reveals bitter family split, it appears The state Division of Children, Youth and Families as well as a court-approved evaluation at a clinic in Portland, Maine interviewed the then 8 year old child and reached the same conclusion as law enforcement, there was no evidence at all against the child’s biological father. Apparently, Dr. Ronald B. Minson elected to provide a different analysis of the child in the Genevieve and Scott Kelley Case. We don’t know why they Kelleys thought that Dr. Minson was so much more qualified than the other professionals in the Northeast that evaluated the child. Maybe we will find out at the trial.

In cases like this, I wonder about the ethics of any child psychiatrist that would evaluate a child without asking the parent if there was any open court-ordered evaluation. In most cases, a psychiatrist would want to make sure their evaluation was approved by the court. Furthermore, you would think that a psychiatrist would want to interview both parents before rendering a credible opinion (unless of course he had advance knowledge that the parents were going into hiding).

As we mentioned before, what continues to disgusts us about the protective parent cause is that this group appears to be hypercritical of the Family Court. The Family Court tries to get a neutral custody evaluation in a fair manner by getting both families to agree on a court evaluator and child psychiatrist to avoid the situation of a parent taking the child to multiple therapists. It appears that Genevieve and Scott Kelly and other protective parents aren’t necessarily interested in a fair process. They want their child to be evaluated by their therapist and were not interested in the opinion of any therapist ordered by the Family Law Court. So as an observer of this particular Parental Kidnapping and Felony Witness Tampering Case, I am personally not interested in hearing the opinions of a Dr. Ronald B. Minson — his opinion doesn’t pass the smell test.  I am hoping the media might further investigate Dr. Minson and see what else turns up.

Will the Judge in the Kelley Case Sanction Alan Rosenfeld?

Alan Rosenfeld, Protective Parent Attorney

We have followed controversial protective parent attorney Alan D. Rosenfeld over the years. For whatever reason, in Rosenfeld’s cases, he is almost always asking for sanctions against his opposing attorneys. It seems to be a pattern of behavior of his. In other words, accuse the attorney because based on his legal conduct, he’s surely to eventually get accused.

In the Genevieve and Scott Kelley Kidnapping and Witness Tampering Case, Rosenfeld has accused the prosecution of withholding evidence that Genevieve Kelley’s former spouse is “maliciously manipulating the prosecution to continue his angry vendetta against his former wife”. Huh, the defendant and her new husband kidnap a respected doctor’s and kidnap his child for ten years and Rosenfeld calls the prosecution malicious? And how many searching parents do we know that had their child kidnapped, many for much less than ten years would not be doing everything in their means to assist their local district attorney in their prosecution of their former spouse that maliciously and cruelly kidnapped their child.

In these protective parent cases, the defendants rarely surrender without media coverage lined up. It’s apparent that Elaine Aradillas from People Magazine was given an exclusive by the defendant and Rosenfeld. And even local New Hampshire Reporter of the Union Leader has been a victim to the spoon-fed press releases and email from Rosenfeld and the Kelley Supporters.

We are hoping that Judge Peter Bornstein starts to take control of this case and puts a gag order on all parties. Rosenfeld likes to try these protective parent cases in smaller county court houses in America. We are hoping that potential jurors will not be influenced by the one-sided reporting of People Magazine and other members of the media. We are confident that in 2015, a jury from New Hampshire will be able to ensure that the defendants are held accountable for the ten year kidnapping and the felony witness tampering charges. This verdict is not only important to protecting our family court system and child protection system but  but also to deter others from kidnapping their children.

Union Leader

Breaking: Will the Judge Finally Issue a Gag Order in the Genevieve and Scott Kelley Trial?

The prosecutor in the State of New Hampshire v. Genevieve Kelley has moved again to ask the court to issue a gag order in the case. There is an additional request to ask the court to issue sanctions against defense Attorney Alan D. Rosenfeld, Esp.

Over the past two decades, we have followed the case of protective parent trials including those defended by protective parent attorney Alan D. Rosenfeld. Mr. Rosenfeld, has a history of trying these cases in the media and putting the searching parent victim on trial. In virtually all of the cases we have followed, there is rarely any clear evidence against the child’s biological father. That’s because these narcissistic protective mothers somehow incorrectly arrive at the conclusion that if their child’s behavior changed the there child must have been harmed. So it  must be their former spouse’s fault, because it certainly couldn’t be hers. Furthermore, the defendant or kidnapping mother almost always flees, essentially tampering with the investigation before any thorough investigation into the abuse allegations can be completed or even started. This leaves the defense attorney Alan Rosenfeld with little if any credible evidence for the trial, so he uses the media to tell the mother’s fabricated story. In the Kelley case, he couldn’t get the judge to allow him to video tape the child in a deposition, so instead controversial People Magazine Reporter Elaine Aradillas had the now adult child read a letter for a video. He will no doubt try and get the court to admit the video as evidence. Many of us don’t believe the this child even wrote the letter.

At the most recent protective parent conference last month in New Jersey — several speakers recommended that protective parents go to the media rather than Family Court. These protective parent groups don’t necessarily believe in the Family Court and Court Evaluator process. As is once written in the Protective Parent Legal Book for protective mothers in the early ’90s, they encourage the mothers to use multiple forums to tell their story. And now with Social Media / Facebook, these protective mothers have many new forums. We noticed that there is a Free the Kelleys campaign on

At several of the past protective parent criminal trials, the judges have finally issued a gag order after weeks/months of watching Rosenfeld attempt to taint the jury pool. You would think in the Genevieve Kelley trial, that Rosenfeld, Genevieve Kelley and Scott Kelley would be doing everything to protect the 19 year old special needs child involved in this case. It has been reported that the child doesn’t like to be photographed and has a fear of social networks. It appears that one could conclude that the child is now cured or the Kelleys and Rosenfeld are still engaging in witness tampering.

We think it is finally the time that the Judge will issue a gag order in this case. Geneveive Kelley and Rosenfeld have had months to exercise their First Amendment Right. It’s now time for the pro hac vice attorney activist to engage in appropriate court room conduct and for all witness tampering to stop in this case. It’s time that that our judicial process make sure there is justice is this parental kidnapping and witness tampering trial. The enforcement of our parental kidnapping laws are important to not only Americans but to parents and children in every country.

There is a time to protest and a time to look after the rights of children and parents. I respectively have confidence that Coos County, New Hampshire will not allow a medical doctor and hometown boy think they can dictate a verdict by using People Magazine and their small group of anti-government protesters to influence prospective jurors. This is not the ’60s nor is it Ferguson, Missouri. Genevieve and Scott Kelley should not possibly think they can get a Coos County Jury to think that the Spurwink Clinic in the Northeast wasn’t good enough for their custody dispute with the child’s father and that their only legal option was to flee to a beach in Central America to have another child. If Genevieve and Scott Kelley want to tell their story, then I want to see them take the witness stand. Let the jurors hear their narcissistic testimony of how they put themselves above any Coos County Family Court Judge and Law Enforcement Officers.

It’s time to put the gag order on this Defense Attorney and let the trial begin.