Utah custody battle involves feds, Japan
Dad's 2 sons live overseas; similar cases on the rise
Gulbraa's ex-wife, Etsuko Tanizaki Allred, claims she and her sons are stuck in Japan, unable to persuade the Utah courts to give her a fair hearing.
Studies show that kidnapping cases — including international kidnapping cases — are on the rise.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice National Incident Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children, it is estimated around 200,000 children were abducted by family members annually in recent years.
A 1999 report to the United Nations on "post-divorce child stealing" concluded that since the mid-1970s incidents of parental abduction have paralleled the growing divorce rate in the United States.
Gulbraa's custody battle spans the vast Pacific Ocean and involves not only U.S. and Japanese courts, but the FBI and U.S. State Department. One entity that has resisted getting involved has been The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which the divorced couple remain members. And as in many custody battles, emotions are strong.
Last month, the Utah Court of Appeals upheld Gulbraa's custody rights to his sons, but with several court rulings in his favor, pending state and federal kidnapping charges against his ex-wife and her current husband, Daren Allred, and an Interpol red note out on the couple, Gulbraa has had little luck in getting his sons back.
Speaking via e-mail from Kasugai, Allred claims because she and her husband are wanted on U.S. federal charges, they can't even come back to the United States to challenge the court's ruling.
When Gulbraa and Allred divorced in 1996, a Utah court granted custody of the two boys to their mother. Gulbraa was ordered to pay $1,000 a month for child support.
Soon after Allred remarried in 1997, she claims Gulbraa began harassing her and her new husband. Gulbraa says he was concerned when one of his sons told him that their new stepfather was physically abusing them. Although a Division of Child and Family Services investigation found the abuse allegations to be unsubstantiated, a Utah court began hearings on the custody issue at Gulbraa's insistence.
You can be the first to comment on this story.