WASHINGTON, July 16 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) – The last time Royce Sigler saw his oldest daughter, she was crying. The next time, if all goes well in Russia, he expects he will be the one in tears.
Back home in Ohio after a recent trip to Russia, he has new reason to hope that long-awaited day may come soon, despite an international custody dispute that reads like a parent’s worst nightmare.
On May 29, 2008, his ex-wife Katya, a native of Russia, picked up their two US born daughters, six-year-old Tanya and four-year-old Ksenya from their home in Texas for a three-day visit. But instead of bringing them back home, she fled with the girls to her mother’s home in Sochi.
“I had to put Tanya in the car. She was crying and screaming and didn’t want to go, and I hugged her and kissed her and said, ‘I’ll see you on Sunday.’ And then of course Sunday never came. I had no idea until Katya just didn’t show up with them,” Sigler told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
In the five years since then, he’s had no contact with either of the girls. He wasn’t allowed to speak with them, even though he called every day for a year until they moved without warning and he lost contact, he said, adding that his ex-wife told him the gifts and candy he sent were thrown away or donated.
He also learned a hard lesson: even though he was awarded custody of the girls in the United States, it meant nothing overseas.
“If a child is taken and held in Russia by a parent, then the other parent must commence civil litigation in Russia to establish access rights (visitation) or custody of the child. Russian law on this issue would control,” said John Schutz, a Florida family law attorney and an expert on international child custody disputes, in a statement to RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
“In Russia parental child abduction is not a crime, so law enforcement in Russia will not enforce a US court order for access or custody,” he added.
There was little Sigler could do until this year. In June, the US Embassy in Moscow called to inform him that his ex-wife had died of cancer, which meant Russia now recognized him as the custodial parent. The girls would remain in the custody of their babushka, his former mother-in-law, until he could get to Russia to pick them up.
“I was supposed to meet with the girls on July 4 at the child protection agency. That was the grandmother’s last day of custody and what happened was she went into the child protection agency on July 3rd to try and extend the time. They informed her that I was coming to see the girls, and then she threw a fit and ran, took the girls and went and hid. We didn’t find out until the 4th when she didn’t show up,” said Sigler.
“That’s twice my daughters have been kidnapped from me,” he said.
It was the culmination of a long and tense relationship with his mother-in-law Elena Kosheleva that began when she moved in with Katya and Royce shortly after they were married. The fit she threw at the agency and her fleeing with the girls was not entirely unexpected, Sigler said.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t happen but I was still upset and to be honest, I was scared. I was scared of what she would do to keep the girls from me. I don’t know if she would do physical harm to the girls to keep them from me, because I just don’t think she’s mentally stable. All the agencies we talked to, they don’t think she’s mentally stable either,” he added.
Sigler, his Russian attorney, and a representative from the child protection agency went to the police station and started the paperwork for an arrest warrant on Kosheleva. Then they went to her apartment with the police so they could verify an attempt to make contact.
Sigler believes the girls and their grandmother are somewhere in Sochi, possibly getting help from a Russian Orthodox priest he knows only as Father Stephen. Both his wife and her mother have told lies to portray him as an abusive father who’s made no effort to see his children in the last five years, he said. Now he fears Kosheleva is telling those same things to anyone who might listen and help.
“At this point, my understanding is, she is trying to sever my parental rights because she is telling them I did nothing for five years. I’ve got emails to their mom and proof otherwise but that’s what she’s trying to say. And the sad part is, if she were successful and severed my parental rights, and then she were to pass away, those girls would be forced to an orphanage and I could no longer get them because I would no longer be considered their father,” he said.
“My understanding is there’s a warrant out for her arrest and the girls are supposed to be taken into protective custody, but it just takes a little bit of money and then the warrant’s gone, and then she has custody, and if she’s successful in taking away my parental rights I’ll never see the girls again,” he added.
Sigler met with the girls’ teachers, neighbors and various government agencies, all of whom he said were “great,” and found it reassuring to hear that both girls remember and love him.
He returned home to Ohio, where his second wife, their baby and a whole extended family are hoping to welcome the girls home soon.
He is busily gathering documentation to prove his efforts to contact Tanya, now 11, and Ksenya, who is now nine. Despite the wrenching circumstances, Sigler said he looks forward to helping them maintain their Russian heritage in the years to come.
“I’ve always said jokingly that they’re half-Texan, half-American and half-Russian. And I want them to be proud of their heritage. Just because I don’t like their grandmother doesn’t mean Russia’s not a great country,” he said. “We live near Cleveland and there’s a large Russian community I would love for them to affiliate with. I don’t want them to ever lose their culture.”
