Saturday, December 24, 2011

Karina Reunited With Father In Wisconsin After A Three Year Custody Battle With Mother Living In Japan

Karina posed with her father Moises Garcia in a January 2008 photo during a Florida visit before being abducted by mother.

Photo: Karina-Garcia dot com

Mother, a Japan national was arrested in Hawaii for abduction of a child, makes plea agreement and agreed to return child to father in Wisconsin.

By H. Nelson Goodson
December 24, 2011

Milwaukee - On Saturday, Moises Garcia, 39, of Fox Point and a native of Nicaragua, who is a medical surgeon for St. Luke's Hospital finally held a news conference in a Milwaukee hotel to express his good fortune to be reunited with his daughter in the state. His wife, Emiko Inoue, 43, a Japan national had taken his 6-year-old daughter Karina Garcia to Takarazuka, Japan on February 2008 without his consent, shortly after Garcia filed for divorce. Inoue failed to show up in court for a divorce hearing.
Garcia had spent more than $350,000 in legal challenges in both Japan and the U.S. in the last three years for legal custody. In 2009, a court in Japan gave Garcia parential rights to visit Karina. Since he began the legal battle, Garcia had about three visits with Karina, including one that lasted just two hours in a hotel restaurant and another visit for ten minutes in an school open house in Japan. His wife, Inoue appealed that decision and the case continued until the recent outcome.
The break in the legal custody battle came in April, when Inoue travelled to Hawaii and she was taken into custody for child abduction charges.
Inoue was returned to Wisconsin to face charges and was held for three months until a plea agreement was reached. She pleaded no contest to a misdeamenor and agreed to return Karina to Wisconsin. In return, she would get probation avoiding a long prison sentence, with the condition she would remain in the state for the next three years. Inoue who is a U.S. legal resident has been released from custody. Pleading to a misdeamenor violation and getting less than a year prison sentence, would exempt her from getting her U.S. residency revoked and than deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Garcia says, he had to learn to speak Japanese because Karina was graduately losing her ability to speak English. He went to Chicago to meet up with Karina, now 9, who arrived in the U.S. on Friday morning at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport escorted by her grandmother and Inoue's attorney, just days before Christmas. Chicago Japanese Consulate officials, law enforcement officers, and representatives from the U.S. Department of State were also at Garcia's reuniting encounter with his daughter.
He confirmed, that if his wife wouldn't have been arrested in Hawaii, he most likely would have never been granted custody of Karina. Inoue is expected to file for parential rights as well in Wisconsin, according to her attorney who filed confirmation with authorities that Karina was reunited with Garcia on Friday.
The Garcia's case is the first time that a child abducted by a parent and taken to Japan has been legally returned to the U.S.
The U.S. Department of State says, that at least 300 cases remained open in Japan dealing with child abductions by one parent.

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