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MAN FACES SENTENCING FOR ABDUCTING SON
BY: FRED SHUSTER
City News Service
August 6, 2012 Monday 3:11 AM PST
CA
Prosecutors recommend that the second of two Syrian- Armenian brothers
who took their juvenile sons out of the country for two years without
the consent of their mothers be sentenced today to 27 months behind
bars.
John Silah, 51, a citizen of Syria, was extradited to the United
States earlier this year and pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal
court to one count of international parental kidnapping, according to
the U.S. Attorney's Office. His brother, George, was sentenced to 27
months in federal prison in May after pleading guilty to two counts
of kidnapping.
According to federal prosecutors, John Silah and his 50-year-old
brother left the United States in July 2008, accompanied by his
then-9-year-old son and George Silah's two sons -- then aged 8 and
12 -- in violation of custody orders awarded to the boys' mothers,
who lived in the San Fernando Valley.
The Silah brothers' flight overseas "appears to have been necessitated
by fraudulent activities in Los Angeles which had caught up with them,"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin R. Rhoades wrote in sentencing papers.
In the months after the abduction, the anguished mothers appeared
on TV's "Dr. Phil" begging for the boys' return or at least word of
their safety. The Los Angeles City Council offered a $25,000 reward
for information leading to their return.
Both men were apprehended in November 2010 in the Netherlands and
subsequently extradited to the United States.
In a letter filed with the court, the boy's mother, Christine
Stackhouse, writes that the two years her son was away from home had a
"profound" negative impact on her son's health and her own. She also
said she was left financially devastated from efforts to find the boy.
Her son, she writes, was sick several times during the trip but was
not treated by a doctor, at one point became infested with lice,
and returned home with a non-malignant growth on his head that had
to be surgically removed.
In addition, the boy is currently being treated for post-traumatic
stress disorder and is "obsessive about making sure all the doors
and windows are locked when he enters the house," writes Stackhouse.
For her part, Stackhouse said, she was treated for clinical depression,
anxiety and sleeplessness during the years of "not knowing if my son
was alive or dead -- if he was suffering or missing me."
At George Silah's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Otis D.
Wright II said the act of taking the boys out of the country without
notice was designed to "inflict as much psychic harm as possible"
on the former spouses.
Rhoades said that the Silah brothers had defrauded others in a
business deal in Los Angeles and had embarked on a "calculated" and
"well-planned" effort to flee from those who had lost money before they
"caught on."
When they fled, the Silah brothers were divorced from the boys'
mothers and had only partial legal custody of their sons, who lived
in the San Fernando Valley with their mothers.
Over the next two years, the group traveled through Mexico, Central
America and Europe. When they were found and detained, the mothers
flew to the Netherlands, where they were reunited with their sons.
BY: FRED SHUSTER
City News Service
August 6, 2012 Monday 3:11 AM PST
CA
Prosecutors recommend that the second of two Syrian- Armenian brothers
who took their juvenile sons out of the country for two years without
the consent of their mothers be sentenced today to 27 months behind
bars.
John Silah, 51, a citizen of Syria, was extradited to the United
States earlier this year and pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal
court to one count of international parental kidnapping, according to
the U.S. Attorney's Office. His brother, George, was sentenced to 27
months in federal prison in May after pleading guilty to two counts
of kidnapping.
According to federal prosecutors, John Silah and his 50-year-old
brother left the United States in July 2008, accompanied by his
then-9-year-old son and George Silah's two sons -- then aged 8 and
12 -- in violation of custody orders awarded to the boys' mothers,
who lived in the San Fernando Valley.
The Silah brothers' flight overseas "appears to have been necessitated
by fraudulent activities in Los Angeles which had caught up with them,"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin R. Rhoades wrote in sentencing papers.
In the months after the abduction, the anguished mothers appeared
on TV's "Dr. Phil" begging for the boys' return or at least word of
their safety. The Los Angeles City Council offered a $25,000 reward
for information leading to their return.
Both men were apprehended in November 2010 in the Netherlands and
subsequently extradited to the United States.
In a letter filed with the court, the boy's mother, Christine
Stackhouse, writes that the two years her son was away from home had a
"profound" negative impact on her son's health and her own. She also
said she was left financially devastated from efforts to find the boy.
Her son, she writes, was sick several times during the trip but was
not treated by a doctor, at one point became infested with lice,
and returned home with a non-malignant growth on his head that had
to be surgically removed.
In addition, the boy is currently being treated for post-traumatic
stress disorder and is "obsessive about making sure all the doors
and windows are locked when he enters the house," writes Stackhouse.
For her part, Stackhouse said, she was treated for clinical depression,
anxiety and sleeplessness during the years of "not knowing if my son
was alive or dead -- if he was suffering or missing me."
At George Silah's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Otis D.
Wright II said the act of taking the boys out of the country without
notice was designed to "inflict as much psychic harm as possible"
on the former spouses.
Rhoades said that the Silah brothers had defrauded others in a
business deal in Los Angeles and had embarked on a "calculated" and
"well-planned" effort to flee from those who had lost money before they
"caught on."
When they fled, the Silah brothers were divorced from the boys'
mothers and had only partial legal custody of their sons, who lived
in the San Fernando Valley with their mothers.
Over the next two years, the group traveled through Mexico, Central
America and Europe. When they were found and detained, the mothers
flew to the Netherlands, where they were reunited with their sons.