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Feds Arrest Mom After International Kidnapping Manhunt

Feds Arrest Mom After International Kidnapping Manhunt

Federal agents in Detroit on Monday arrested a Tennessee woman accused of kidnapping a child and fleeing to Asia, where she was captured, before escaping from an Indonesian prison and attempting to disappear in the South Pacific.

Laurie Kate Carson, 37, was jailed Monday after she was arrested when her flight from Bali landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, 15 months after she left the US with her son. After a brief hearing in federal court in Detroit, she was ordered held without bond until at least Wednesday.

Federal court records describe a custody battle, a slippery fugitive and an international manhunt that ended when Carson landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport aboard a flight from Bali, Indonesia, surrounded by federal agents.

Cases of international parental abduction are rare. Last year, federal officials solved 136 cases that led to the return of 205 abducted children to the U.S., while handling more than 700 active abduction cases involving 982 children, according to the data. State Department report.

Carson, a mother of three from Hendersonville, about 28 miles north of Nashville, was brought back to the US five months after the parents were charged in federal court in Tennessee with international kidnapping. The crime carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison, and prosecutors want to keep Carson in jail pending trial.

“There is a substantial risk that the defendant will flee his trial, and the United States can establish this by a preponderance of the evidence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire wrote in asking a federal judge to detain Carson. “There is a substantial danger that the defendant may attempt to obstruct justice by attempting to influence her son’s potential testimony.”

Carson’s attorney, Senad Ramovich, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The government’s detention request provides a timeline of the case and the international manhunt that began in the United States and stretched from Portugal to Asia.

The story begins with a custody battle.

Carson and her ex-husband, whose name is not listed in court documents, separated shortly after the birth of their son in 2014.

Carson shared custody with her ex-husband, who lived in Maryland and had unsupervised custody during the summer, holidays and occasional weekends. Her ex-husband moved to Tennessee in 2021 and continued to raise their son unsupervised.

By then, Carson had remarried and had two more children with her new husband.

In the spring of 2023, Carson offered to move with her son to Portugal. It is not known why she wanted to move, but Carson’s ex-husband fought the attempt in court.

In the end, Carson gave her and her son’s passports to the judge. But in July 2023, she sought an emergency hearing to allow her to move to Portugal with her son.

Instead, the judge let Carson and her son go on a family vacation to Portugal and granted them passports, despite her ex-husband’s objections.

Carson and her son arrived in Portugal in mid-July 2023 and did not return, prosecutors wrote.

On July 28, 2023, the state court judge handling Carson’s custody case issued an order finding that Carson had abducted his son. The judge also ordered her to return to the US immediately and gave her ex-husband custody of her son.

Instead of returning, Carson sent a letter to the judge.

“I want to clearly explain my intentions. At this time, I have no plans to return to the United States, and no one in the United States knows my whereabouts,” Carson wrote. “My attorney … had no prior knowledge of my intention to leave the United States permanently, and knows nothing of my whereabouts, despite on his many efforts to obtain this knowledge.

“I sincerely apologize for disobeying your orders,” Carson continued. — It will always worry me and it will not be in my character. Please understand that I don’t think I have any other option at this time.”

In the letter, Carson accused her ex-husband of alcohol abuse and alleged that he emotionally and physically abused her, according to the government.

Carson’s ex-husband has no criminal history, no substance abuse, “and the United States is not aware of any information that would support the defendant’s assertions in the letter,” the prosecutor wrote.

“The allegations of potential substance abuse…were made for the first time in the context of the defendant’s attempt to win her motion to have her parents relocate outside the United States…” the prosecutor added.

Meanwhile, Carson’s ex-husband stepped up his fight for his son.

Last fall, he invoked the Hague Abduction Convention, an international agreement designed to help parents seeking the return of their children from another country.

In response, prosecutors said Carson fled to Indonesia, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

A few months later, in May, Carson was charged in Tennessee.

“Since the defendant’s indictment, the United States has taken extraordinary measures to secure her appearance in court, and the defendant has resisted every step of the way,” wrote McGuire, the federal prosecutor.

Last month, State Department officials revoked Carson’s passport.

“Without a valid passport, the Indonesian immigration authorities revoked the accused’s visa to remain in that country,” McGuire wrote.

Meanwhile, Indonesian officials decided not to extend the son’s visa.

Earlier this month, Carson met with Indonesian immigration officials and the US consulate in Bali, Indonesia. They told Carson that she and her son would be deported.

The consulate staff encouraged her to buy plane tickets to the US and offered money to pay for her trip home.

“The same consular officials informed the defendant that they could issue a temporary US passport for five days that would allow her to leave Indonesia and re-enter the United States,” the prosecutor wrote.

Carson, however, was unable to arrange the trip, he added.

So Indonesian immigration authorities placed Carson in a detention center until she could be taken to an international airport and flown to the United States

According to the government, Carson escaped on October 18. Court records do not provide details on how she managed to escape.

After escaping, Carson met her husband. He was with his son and two minor children of the couple, the prosecutor wrote.

The family fled Bali by car before boarding a ferry for a short trip to the island of Java, the prosecutor wrote. Once there, the family drove about four hours to the port city of Surabaya.

FBI agents and Indonesian immigration officials followed close behind.

“…Through intensive efforts by Indonesian immigration authorities and FBI agents, as well as analysis in both Indonesia and the United States, the defendant, her husband, and all three children were located in Surabaya” on October 21, three days after Carson’s escape from detention center, the prosecutor wrote.

Carson and the rest of her family were placed in an Indonesian immigration detention center.

Three days later, on Thursday, the son was returned to the United States after a 15-month ordeal.

Meanwhile, Carson was arrested on Monday after flying from Bali to Detroit, the first port of entry into the US

“She was successfully brought into the United States only because she was first detained by immigration authorities and then escorted by two federal agents,” McGuire wrote.

Federal agents learned that Carson was making long-term plans even before her arrest.

Prosecutors say she applied for citizenship in the remote island nation of Vanuatu, about 1,100 miles east of Australia. Vanuatu, which, like Indonesia, does not have an extradition treaty with the United States

“Several companies are offering individuals wishing to obtain Vanuatu citizenship the opportunity to become a citizen in as little as 30 days,” the prosecutor wrote. “…It is unclear whether the Government of Vanuatu has taken action on the respondent’s application for citizenship.”

Prosecutors want to keep Carson in custody while the criminal case is pending in Tennessee.

“A defendant who escapes from a detention facility in a foreign country in order to avoid federal charges in the United States will not be prejudiced against turning off and restarting an electronic monitoring device,” McGuire wrote.

Carson managed to set up homes in Portugal and Indonesia and live without any apparent work, the prosecutor added.

This shows that Carson “clearly has the means to travel and support himself,” McGuire wrote.

“Had the defendant been granted Vanuatu citizenship, that country could have issued her a passport that would have allowed her to travel abroad, despite the fact that her American passport had been revoked,” the prosecutor added.

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