A Family Torn Asunder

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/  

A FAMILY TORN ASUNDER 

A 7-year-old is a pawn in an international custody battle that twists and turns with every move. Did his father kidnap him from France? Will his mother return him to Cobb County? Craig Schneider - Staff Sunday, April 1, 2001 

For a while, it seemed simple: Andrew Bowey was the bad guy. He was charged in France with kidnapping his son and taking him back to America. The FBI swarmed to the child's school in Cobb County, arresting Bowey and reuniting the boy with his mother. But in a child custody case, things are rarely simple. And this isn't your average custody case. Bowey, under house arrest on the kidnapping charge, suddenly has a court order giving him temporary custody of the boy. Now his estranged wife, Frederique Bowey, is on the defensive herself. She left the United States with 7-year-old Thomas and his little sister, despite a court order forbidding her to leave with them. Consequently, a Cobb County judge granted temporary custody of the children to Andrew Bowey. But Frederique Bowey vows to keep the kids in France and ignore the judge. "I'm not going to do anything about it," she said in a telephone interview last week from Nancy, France. This is what the breakup of Andrew and Frederique Bowey's marriage has come to. It started as a love story between a world-traveling businessman and a pretty young translator. But the ironic tale of a man charged in one country with kidnapping his son, while being granted custody of him in another, has taken increasingly bizarre turns. 

More than just child custody is at stake. France is pressing the United States to extradite Bowey to face the kidnapping charges. Bowey could face 30 years in a French prison. The Bowey case is an example of the growing number of international custody battles occurring in an ever-shrinking global society, where more and more businesspeople are traversing international boundaries, starting relationships and then divorcing. 

When one spouse takes off across the ocean with a child, the distance and the difference in two nations' laws can make reclaiming that child a formidable task, experts say. For Andrew Bowey, 45, these are anxious times. Still under house arrest at his Mableton home, he is awaiting an April 16 hearing on his possible extradition to France. Riveted around his ankle is a monitoring device that alerts authorities if he strays 100 feet from the house. On Wednesday, after five weeks of home confinement, a Cobb County court granted him permission to leave the house during daylight hours. "I'm seeing my whole life slipping away from me," he said. "Will the French put me in prison? Will I ever see my children again?"

 Love at first sight Andrew and Frederique Bowey's relationship began over a big hole in the ground in Toulouse, France, in 1992. Andrew Bowey was shuttling from country to country, overseeing the installation of pipes and operating systems for gas companies. Frederique Mompeu was a 20-year-old college student translating for her brother-in-law, a local businessman. "I loved his eyes," Frederique recalled of that drizzly day when she met 

Andrew, who is 16 years her senior. He soon was smitten by the dark-haired woman who speaks four languages. "She was very intelligent and very articulate," Andrew recalled. "And attractive." They were inseparable for weeks. He took her on business trips to Alaska and London, wowing her with his worldliness. In time, "I told him I wanted to have his babies." Thomas was conceived in October 1992, she said, while Andrew was visiting her in France. But by the time the boy was born, their relationship was on the rocks. Andrew was not present when the baby was born, and he is not listed as the father on the birth certificate. 

That fact has come to haunt Andrew Bowey as he fights the kidnapping charge. Even though the couple reconciled and married six months later, Frederique maintains that Andrew never legally became Thomas' father. Consequently, when Andrew took off with the children from France this January, the French authorities said he had no legal right to the boy. They charged him with kidnapping and put out an international warrant for his arrest. (There were no charges regarding the taking of his daughter, 3-year-old Grace Ellen, since his name is on her birth certificate.) 

Andrew Bowey's lawyers maintain he had made Thomas his legitimate son by caring for the boy, putting a roof over his head and registering him in school under the name of Bowey. That explanation doesn't satisfy his wife. "He kidnapped them," she said, "like a thief  in the night." Fiery clashes and criminal charges When Andrew and Frederique look back on their nearly 7-year-old marriage, their recollections reflect the divisiveness of divorce: They harp on each other's flaws, and neither accepts much blame. "She was very volatile," Andrew said. "Lots of times I had to fend her off. She would throw things. But I loved her. I wrote it off to every excuse, that she was young, tempestuous, romantic." After the family had been living together in Mableton for about six years, Frederique left with the children for the first time last August. Three weeks before, she had checked herself in for counseling at the Ridgeview Institute in Smyrna. She was depressed, she said, from the verbal and sometimes physical abuse from her husband. "He shoved me and pushed me and kicked me out of bed," she said. She said he would also hit her son, rapping his knuckles against Thomas' head to discipline the boy. "Thomas is really scared of his father," she said. Andrew denies all of this. 

There were no goodbyes when Frederique took off with the kids last summer. Andrew came home from work to an empty house. Hours passed before he discovered the empty closets. He spent a sleepless night as Frederique and the children took the nine-hour plane flight and three-hour drive to her parents' home in France. The next day she left a message on his answering machine saying she had to leave. Despite the turmoil, Andrew and Frederique continued to communicate. In late December, Andrew flew to France for a visit. His children loved him, and Frederique wanted to give them a chance to visit. When he got there, Andrew says, he didn't like what he found. Frederique wanted to party nearly every night with her friends, he said. She denies that. 

On Jan. 6, it was Frederique's turn to wait through nervous hours for her husband to arrive with the kids. She finally learned that Andrew had checked out of his hotel, and she filed a kidnapping complaint with French police. When a dozen FBI agents and police descended on Andrew Bowey as he picked up Thomas from Nickajack Elementary School on Feb. 1, they had been told that he was not the boy's legitimate father and that he may be armed. Outside the school, Bowey heard people running behind him. He turned to see a barrage of officers, guns drawn and pointed at his head. They threw him to the ground, cuffed him and dragged him away. The last thing he recalls seeing was a police officer reaching into his car to lift out little Grace Ellen. Andrew Bowey has been charged under French law with kidnapping Thomas. "I'm not a kidnapper," he insists. "I registered Thomas in school." Another departure with the children The next time Andrew and Frederique Bowey were in the same room was Feb. 9. They were at opposite sides of Cobb County Juvenile Court, seated beside their respective attorneys. He kept looking at her; she avoided his gaze. The children, Thomas and Grace Ellen, arrived from a foster home, where they had been living since their father was arrested eight days earlier. Because their father was behind bars, the children were handed over to Frederique. She had also been handed divorce papers days earlier from her husband. As part of the divorce, Frederique was ordered not to remove the children from Georgia until their custody is settled. But she did. Frederique says she was running out of money and had nowhere to stay and that the children were getting sick with the flu. In mid-February, she took the children back to France to live with her parents. 

Temporary custody was granted to Andrew on March 22, during a divorce hearing that began with Frederique's attorney, Carin Burgess, asking to be dismissed from the case for lack of payment. The request was granted. Frederique was found in contempt of court for not showing up and for leaving the country with her kids. Andrew's attorney, Michael Manely of Marietta, said he does not expect Frederique to have much trouble over the court's finding of contempt, since such matters rarely rise to the level of an arrest. But Andrew is preparing a formal request to the U.S. State Department to have the children brought back from France under an international treaty called the Hague Convention. Such requests can take two to three years to accomplish, however. The treaty would only deliver the children here; the custody issue would still need to be resolved through the divorce proceeding. Furthermore, the whole process could be significantly altered due to the extradition request hanging over Andrew's head. Frederique says she does not want to ruin her husband's life. If he is convicted by a French jury and incarcerated --- potentially into his 70s --- "That's not my decision," she said. "It's the judge's." Meanwhile, she says, Thomas and Grace Ellen are settling into their new home in the country. Thomas enjoys riding horses and his bicycle, and Grace Ellen has her Barbie dolls from their Cobb home. 

But the strain still shows. Thomas sees a psychiatrist. Andrew seems just as bitter as his estranged wife. But when the turbulent emotions settle, his old feelings rise. "It's not something I like to admit: I still bear strong affection and love for Frederique," he said. And under the right circumstances, he said, he would return to her. "So long as the family can be harmonious." THE BOWEY CUSTODY BATTLE Jan. 13, 1994: Andrew Bowey and Frederique Mompeu marry. August 2000: After six years of marriage, Frederique Bowey takes the two children from their Cobb County home to her parents' home in France. Jan. 6, 2001: During a visit with the children in France, Andrew Bowey takes them back to his Mableton home. He files for divorce Jan. 26. Feb. 1: Acting on a kidnapping complaint lodged by Frederique in France, FBI agents and local authorities arrest Andrew as he picks up his 7-year-old son at Nickajack Elementary School in Smyrna. Mid-February: Frederique takes Thomas and his younger sister, Grace Ellen, now 3, back to France. She does this in violation of a court order saying the children must stay in Georgia until their custody is determined through the divorce proceeding. Wednesday: Cobb County Superior Court Judge Lark Ingram grants temporary custody of the two children to Andrew. Frederique was found in contempt of court for not showing up and for leaving the country with the children. AJC Home: http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/ AJC Newspaper Online brought to you in partnership with AccessAtlanta © 2000 Cox Interactive Media 

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