Posted on: Friday, June 14, 2002

Maui judge sends mother to jail for fleeing with 2 girls

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

WAILUKU, Maui — A former Maui woman was sent to jail for six months yesterday for violating a court-ordered joint custody agreement by taking her two children to Central America to keep them away from their father.

Mary Lou French, 56, was also fined $5,000, placed on probation for five years and ordered to put in 200 hours of community service.

Maui Circuit Court Judge Joseph Cardoza also scheduled a separate restitution hearing for Wednesday, when lawyers are expected to discuss compensation to her former husband, James French, in his search for the two girls.

A jury in April found the mother guilty of two counts of custodial interference.

Jurors rejected her claim that she spirited her girls abroad to protect them from sexual abuse by her ex-husband, the former director of the Maui Symphony Orchestra.

In court yesterday, an apologetic Mary Lou French acknowledged she should have tried harder to pursue legal remedies in her custody battle.

She was considered a federal fugitive for more than a year until her arrest in Panama in April 2000. The FBI, helped by information uncovered by James French's attorney, tracked her to Costa Rica, where she was living with the girls, Emily, now 7, and Sarah, 6.

During her three-week trial, Mary Lou French testified that she fled the United States to save her children from what she said was abuse that began after she started leaving the girls with her ex-husband under the joint custody order.

She did not make any claims of sexual assault during divorce or custody proceedings — and she did not repeat them in court yesterday.

Defense attorney David Bettencourt said his client fled because she feared she couldn't get justice on Maui. Her former husband's attorney was too powerful in Maui Family Court, he said, and joint custody was awarded despite substantial evidence against grounds for granting those terms.

But Judge Cardoza said that if she had a problem on Maui, she should have appealed to a higher court. Instead, he said, she chose to take the law into her hands and nearly succeeded in depriving the girls of their father permanently.

Cardoza sent French to jail immediately, despite her protest that she wouldn't be able to tell her girls goodbye. The judge, noting her record of disobeying the court, said she was a flight risk.

James French now lives in California with his daughters and is still subject to a California court order allowing their mother weekly visitation.

After the court hearing, Bettencourt said it was likely that his client would appeal.