Ordeals

U.S. Dad Wins Custody in Brazil

Case likely to be appealed.

New Jersey dad David Goldman may get to spend the new year with his 9-year-old son, after a Brazilian federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the boy must be handed over to him at the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro within 48 hours. In 2004, Bruna Bianchi, Goldman's wife, took the 4-year-old boy to Brazil for what Goldman says was supposed to be a two-week vacation. Instead Bianchi stayed in Brazil, got a divorce, and remarried before dying last year while giving birth to a daughter. Goldman had already been seeking the return of his son under an international treaty covering cross-border child abductions. Since then, the boy's maternal grandmother and stepfather have been trying to keep him in Brazil in a widely publicized custody battle that has moved President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the U.S. Congress to weigh in seeking the boy's return. The current court decision is likely to be appealed by the child's stepfather.