Six months after returning one of their two adopted sons to an orphanage, a Bellwood couple have agreed to stop fighting a court order requiring regular visits between the boys, who are biological brothers.
The tentative agreement, reached Tuesday between the attorney for the adoptive parents and the attorney representing 11-year-old Tony, who was removed from the adoptive home, ends three months of acrimonious court battles during which both the parents` motives and Tony`s emotional stability were publicly questioned.
At one point, Public Guardian Patrick Murphy, who represents Tony, filed a lawsuit seeking $50,000 in emotional damages from the parents for their refusal to permit Tony to see his brother, 8-year-old Sam.
The settlement closely parallels the court order issued in April by Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Walter Williams, who said the boys should visit weekly and have daily phone calls. Tony is now living with a foster family in Oak Park.
The brothers will continue their regular, weekly visits, the lawyers agreed, but both sides agreed to be flexible in case of scheduling conflicts or the changing desires of the children. The visits will be supervised by social workers from the Hephzibah Children`s Association orphanage, who will also determine how the visits are affecting the brothers.
Murphy has also agreed to drop the lawsuit for damages.
In court papers seeking to end their parental responsibility, the parents said they couldn`t form an emotional attachment to Tony, even after months of intermittent psychological counseling. Later, after Tony asked to see Sam, the couple said through their lawyer that they were afraid to let Sam see Tony because the older boy was emotionally unstable and violent.
Although the parents said they had always intended to permit occasional visits, they opposed the April court order by asking the judge to put an immediate halt to the visits on May 3, making new claims about Tony`s physical violence toward Sam while they lived together, along with allegations about Tony`s indifference to his younger brother during the weekly visits.
Murphy described the children`s fights as normal interaction between siblings. He countered with plans to subject the parents to psychological testing and extensive depositions to disprove their allegations against Tony and to demonstrate their own instability. The first deposition was to occur Tuesday.
Tony had requested the visits shortly after he was placed temporarily with Hephzibah last November, after living with his adoptive parents for five years.
Mary Martin, the parents` attorney, said the couple were ”financially broken” by the legal battle and couldn`t afford the lengthy process of defending their decision to give Tony up.
”Murphy has a taxpayers` pocket,” Martin said. ”My clients had always planned to keep the boys in contact anyway, but they were broken by the financial aspects of this, the expert witnesses and what they would require. They want to put an end to the emotional feelings of being dumped on, called nasty names. They can`t pay a lot money to prove they made a wise decision.” According to Murphy, the settlement incorporates everything Tony had initially asked for: regular visits and ready access to his sibling.
”It`s what we originally asked for, exactly what we asked Judge Williams to do, and we`re very happy,” Murphy said. ”The emotional harm was for refusal to grant visits. This negates that.”
Murphy said he agrees with the need for flexibility in the court order, so that the boys can have more or fewer visits, as they desire and is practical.
The brothers` story first came to the public`s attention at the end of March, when Murphy first asked the court to mandate the visits.
”When I was eating dinner, they (his parents) said I was going to be put up for adoption,” Tony said in a taped message sent to his brother that was released by Murphy during the controversy.
”I thought they were kidding, but they weren`t. . . . I`m very sorry and I hope I get to see you again. I just want to say I miss you . . . and you don`t have to worry about me. I`m doing fine.”
