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VACATION OF ANGUISH FOR FATHER LEFT BEHIND COTATI
GEOLOGIST SEEKS CUSTODY OF ABDUCTED CHILDREN 3 YEARS AFTER WIFE
FAILED TO RETURN FROM VISIT TO SWITZERLAND
Published on September 9, 2001
© 2001- The Press Democrat
BYLINE: CLARK MASON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
PAGE: B1
It has been more than three years since Stephen Knuttel took his wife
and two sons to the airport for a vacation from which they never returned.
He expected his family back in six weeks from a visit to Switzerland,
his wife's home country.
Instead, the Cotati geologist's wife stayed. Anne Marie Roth obtained
a divorce and custody of sons Andreas and Martin, who are now 16 and
12, through the Swiss courts.
``She kidnapped my kids,'' Knuttel said.
He has struggled to get the attention of local, state or federal
authorities, and now the Sonoma County district attorney is
considering whether to charge Knuttel's ex-wife with felony child abduction.
But when it comes to getting Knuttel's children back, it may be a
case of too little too late.
``From what I could see, it would have very little effect,''
Assistant District Attorney Greg Jacobs said. ``You can make a
symbolic gesture, but it's pretty tough when another country says
`I'm sorry, but our law prevails.'''
Knuttel is not alone in his predicament. The U.S. State Department
estimates about 1,000 children are taken by a parent from the United
States each year.
Few of them are returned.
The Justice Department has prosecuted just 62 cases since the
International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act was passed in 1993,
according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Parents say the Justice Department has little interest and the State
Department does not want to disrupt diplomatic relations over
abducted children.
Knuttel and Roth were married in 1981 in Switzerland. Their son,
Andreas, was born there in 1985. A second son, Martin, was born in
California in 1989, four years after they moved to the United States.
Roth took them to Switzerland in August 1998 and initiated divorce proceedings.
One of Knuttel's attorneys, James Bertoli, who has since been elected
a Sonoma County judge, described his client's dilemma in a motion he
filed in federal court last year:
``Your children have been abducted to another country. You turn to
your local authorities; they cannot help. You turn to your state
government; they cannot help. You turn to your federal government;
they cannot help.''
Knuttel was granted monthly supervised visits, but said he fears
arrest if he travels to Switzerland because his ex-wife obtained an
order for child and spousal support payments of about $3,000 a month
-- more than his take-home pay from Bechtel Corp.
He is about $500,000 in arrears, according to Swiss authorities.
After long-distance efforts to compromise failed, Knuttel entered
what he describes as a non-stop battle for custody of his sons.
He has gone to court, and contacted his congressional
representatives, the State Department and the FBI.
He obtained a court order in Los Angeles saying his wife violated
international law because she did not get the divorce in the country
where the children lived most of the time. Another court order,
obtained in Sonoma County, grants him sole custody.
But Roslyn Eliaser, an investigator for the Sonoma County district
attorney, said ``the Swiss government is not interpreting it that
way, and they have assumed jurisdiction in the matter.''
Another problem, she said, is Roth did not steal the children in the
middle of the night.
Roth could not be reached for comment.
The U.S. State Department listed Switzerland as a ``country of
concern'' in its April 2000 compliance report on the Hague
Convention, which governs international custody disputes.
A State Department spokesman said there currently are six disputed
custody cases involving 12 children in Switzerland.
As for pursuing kidnapping charges, State Department spokesman
Christopher Lamora said that can be self-defeating. ``Foreign courts
will be reluctant to order the return of a child where there is a
warrant,'' he said.
Knuttel contacted a number of Swiss lawyers. But he found it
difficult to get legal representation, and he did not have the money
for a long battle.
One Swiss lawyer wrote Knuttel last year saying his children said
they would prefer to stay in Switzerland. The attorney noted the
longer they stayed there, the more reluctant any Swiss court would be
to return them.
Knuttel said he writes all the time, but is uncertain how much of the
mail his sons receive. They only write back about once a year.
He doesn't know how he and his boys would react if they are reunited,
and expects it won't happen before they are 18.
In the meantime, he keeps their beds made at his Cotati home with
their teddy bears still on them.
``I've done my crying,'' he said. ``But it hurts. I know they're out there.''
He repeats a Latin phrase of encouragement passed on to him by a
friend: ``Dum Spiro, spearo,'' he said, meaning ``While I breathe, I hope.''
News researcher Teresa Meikle contributed to this report. You can
reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 568-5312 or e-mail cmason@pressdemocrat.com.
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