NewsMax.com. Thursday April 20, 2000; 10:09 PM EDT
New information suggesting that Juan Miguel Gonzalez is a child abuser surfaced late Thursday, based on comments attributed to the ultimate reliable source: Elian Gonzalez himself.
"Mari, I don't want you to go meet with my father, cause I don't want him to hit you," Elian said, according to Miami Mayor Joe Carollo, who recounted the new abuse shocker on Fox New Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" show.
Elian's cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez has become his surrogate mother in the months since he lost his biological mom at sea.
Carollo said the account was related to him last week by Elian's great uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez and that he was making the information public for the first time.
"When the attorney general came down to meet with the family, for part of that meeting young Elian was present," said Carollo. "Later on he went up to Marisleysis. And he said to her, 'Mari, I don't want you to go meet with my father, cause I don't want him to hit you.'"
Carollo said Elian's uncle had tears in his eyes as he related the story.
"No one told that boy to say that," the mayor emphatically added. "That came from himself, from inside of him." Carollo suggested that authorities needed to investigate the "traumatic experience this boy has lived through in Cuba."
Suggestions that Elian has been abused by his father surfaced prominently last week, in an account from family friend Orlando Rodriguez. In a sworn affidavit filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Rodriguez said that he personally witnessed Juan Miguel Gonzalez beat Elian's mother badly
enough to send her to the hospital.
"Juan Miguel is of a violent nature, impulsive nature and out of control" Rodriguez claimed, "all of which traits I saw him inflict on his own son Elian."
In January, Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, who was selected by Attorney General Janet Reno to host Elian's reunion with his grandmothers, filed an affidavit claiming she had information about "spousal abuse" in Elian's family.
The next month Sister O'Laughlin told The Miami Herald that she had "information from one of the grandmothers that the father had been abusive to Elian's mother (and that) made her question how good a father he would be to Elian."
Appearing Thursday on Chris Matthews "Hardball," an attorney for Elian's Miami relatives suggested that the child abuse charges would be introduced in court as part of the family's battle to keep the Cuban raft boy in America.
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