Brazil custody battle boy yet to call father "Dad"

Mon Dec 28

NEW YORK The 9-year-old boy reunited with his American father after a five-year custody battle in Brazil has yet to call him "Dad" but the father said on Monday he plans to make up for lost time.

Sean Goldman returned to the United States with his father David Goldman on Christmas Eve after the Brazilian family of the boy's deceased mother lost their fight to keep him.

The dispute tested U.S.-Brazilian relations and briefly threatened to interrupt billions of dollars of U.S. trade benefits to Brazil.

The Brazilian family handed the boy over to the U.S. consulate on Thursday upon orders of the Brazilian courts.

"He hasn't really called me anything," David Goldman told  television's "Today" show in an interview. "And I think he's struggling with that. I said, 'You can call me Dad.' And he didn't say anything."

"I missed five years, precious years, of my son's life. That's a big scar. But now we're together. And we'll heal. And we'll enjoy and live and love and share and cry and laugh and learn as father and son," he said.

Media chartered a jet to bring the Goldmans to the United States and has had exclusive access to the reunited father and son, who have been staying in Orlando, Florida.

David Goldman had fought since 2004 to bring his son home to New Jersey after his then-wife and Sean's mother, Bruna Bianchi, took the U.S.-born boy to her native Brazil and then divorced Goldman.

Bianchi died last year while giving birth to a daughter, but her second husband and her family sought to keep custody of Sean. Goldman said he would allow Sean's Brazilian grandmother visitation rights.

The handover at the U.S. consulate was chaotic with the startled-looking boy clutching his stepfather and covering his teary face from cameras as the two pushed their way through a mass of reporters.

"I hope he doesn't have lifelong nightmares of that day," Goldman said. "My heart has been breaking, and has been broken over and over, and over and over through this whole terrible ordeal. I'll never understand them. I will never."