Homestead man vows custody fight
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com. Published Friday,
December 22, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Blocked from bringing his 5-year-old son back from Cuba, a Homestead man
returned from the island Thursday night, vowing to launch an international
custody battle for the boy similar to the one fought over Elián González.
Jon Colombini said his attorney will prepare to appeal to Cuba's Supreme
Court for custody of Jonathon, a former kindergarten student at Plantation Key
School in Tavernier.
In January, Colombini and his attorney plan to return to the island to file
their case.
"We believe that international law, U.S. law and Cuban law are on the
side of Mr. Colombini,'' said attorney Michael Berry, of Clearwater, who
specializes in international custody cases.
During his four-day visit to the island, Colombini, 31, said he pressed his
case before "attentive and polite'' high-ranking Cuban officials during
meetings in Havana. For the most part, the officials just acted as observers
during his visit.
U.S. COURT ORDER
Berry said he will ask the island government to honor a Dec. 12 court order,
issued by a Monroe County judge, granting Colombini temporary custody of
Jonathon. The judge ruled that Colombini's wife, Arletis Blanco, violated the
conditions of their 1998 divorce because they had been granted joint custody.
But the case is complicated by the fact that Cuba and the United States have
no diplomatic relations and do not share an extradition treaty covering such
cases.
"There is no road map,'' Berry said. "This case calls for
spontaneous activity as things evolve.''
Cuba's Supreme Court is not an independent body as it is in the United
States, said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
"It doesn't work the same way there,'' Suchlicki said. "Those
judges are appointed by the Communist Party secretary, and they will rule the
way [Cuban President Fidel] Castro tells them.''
Attempts to reach a spokesman with the Cuba Interests Section in Washington
on Thursday were unsuccessful.
In the Elián case, attorneys in the United States took their
months-long custody battle as far as the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to
hear the case.
Once launched, the battle over Miami-born Jonathon will pit his U.S.-born
father, a kitchen manager, and Blanco, his Cuban-born ex-wife. She is a former
office manager who fled while under suspicion of embezzling money from her
employer, McKenzie Petroleum in the Florida Keys.
Blanco has told Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper, that she left
because she had been threatened by her former boss. She said he had diverted the
embezzled money to Cuban exile groups. She also said she prefers to raise her
family in Cuba.
TAPED CONFESSION
However, she left behind three cassette tapes with her family in which she
confessed to stealing $150,000. Monroe County sheriff's detectives are
investigating.
Blanco, who fled with her boyfriend, Agustin Lemus, their toddler daughter
and Lemus' cousin, took Jonathon without his father's consent. She says she
wants to stay on the island.
But Colombini said he believes an American life is best for the child. "I
want him in the United States,'' he said.
By visiting the island, the father had hoped to avert a legal battle, but he
said his ex-wife refused to let him see Jonathon away from the house. Colombini
said he saw his son after school, traveling 90 minutes every day.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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