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A Montgomery County dad who traveled to Moscow in December to reconcile with his two young sons after his ex-wife fled the country with them in 2019 has been imprisoned for eight months. David Barnes, 65, is charged with the identical offense for which he was found not guilty by a jury in the United States.
Since his incarceration in January, his family has only been permitted to correspond with him in writing through his lawyers. “He is a man who loves his children more than anything,” his sister Carol Barnes said to KPRC 2. “I have no joy in life because simply knowing what he’s living in, the surroundings, and what might happen after the trial terrifies the crap out of me.”
David flew to Moscow to find his ex-wife, Svetlana, who fled the country with their children after a lengthy custody fight in Montgomery County. She accused him of sexually abusing their children during the divorce procedures. A jury determined the claims to be wholly false, according to Kelly Blackburn of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
“He understood that if she didn’t get what she wanted out of this trial, which she didn’t,” Carol explained. According to a December 2018 court ruling, Svetlana Barnes’ attorney was ordered to preserve the boys’ passports until the further direction of the court. It’s unclear whether that injunction was ever overturned. Svetlana fled the United States with the boys in March 2019, after the jury declared David innocent of the sex abuse claims, and joint custody of the boys was expected to resume.
She had all of this planned before the judgment came down on that Tuesday; she was already planning to leave the country,” Carol explained. Svetlana is now accused of tampering with child custody and is wanted in the United States, where David has sole custody.
“No one discovered any solid proof that David had ever done anything improper with his children,” stated Andrea Kolski, David’s defense attorney. “It’s quite terrible that a law-abiding man may become entangled in global politics and find up in the situation he’s in because of the comments of a vengeful ex-wife.” David visited Moscow in December. He found an apartment in the same building as Svetlana and the boys but was going through the legal process to recover access to them, according to his family and Kolski.
Carol stated that Svetlana saw him near the building and phoned the police. He then discovered that she was able to remove his parental rights in Russia by using the Russian courts. Not only did she continue to accuse him of sexually assaulting his children, which was never verified by anyone other than her,” Kolski said. “She then relocated to another nation and was able to accuse him of the same claims there.”
A Montgomery County dad who traveled to Moscow in December to reconcile with his two young sons after his ex-wife fled the country with them in 2019 has been imprisoned for eight months. David Barnes, 65, is charged with the identical offense for which he was found not guilty by a jury in the United States.
Since his incarceration in January, his family has only been permitted to correspond with him in writing through his lawyers. “He is a man who loves his children more than anything,” his sister Carol Barnes said to KPRC 2. “I have no joy in life because simply knowing what he’s living in, the surroundings, and what might happen after the trial terrifies the crap out of me.”
David flew to Moscow to find his ex-wife, Svetlana, who fled the country with their children after a lengthy custody fight in Montgomery County. She accused him of sexually abusing their children during the divorce procedures. A jury determined the claims to be wholly false, according to Kelly Blackburn of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
“He understood that if she didn’t get what she wanted out of this trial, which she didn’t,” Carol explained. According to a December 2018 court ruling, Svetlana Barnes’ attorney was ordered to preserve the boys’ passports until the further direction of the court. It’s unclear whether that injunction was ever overturned.
Svetlana fled the United States with the boys in March 2019, after the jury declared David innocent of the sex abuse claims, and joint custody of the boys was expected to resume. “She had all of this planned before the judgment came down on that Tuesday; she was already planning to leave the country,” Carol explained.
Svetlana is now accused of tampering with child custody and is wanted in the United States, where David has sole custody. No one discovered any solid proof that David had ever done anything improper with his children,” stated Andrea Kolski, David’s defense attorney. “It’s quite terrible that a law-abiding man may become entangled in global politics and find up in the situation he’s in because of the comments of a vengeful ex-wife.”
David visited Moscow in December. He found an apartment in the same building as Svetlana and the boys but was going through the legal process to recover access to them, according to his family and Kolski. Carol stated that Svetlana saw him near the building and phoned the police. He then discovered that she was able to remove his parental rights in Russia by using the Russian courts.
Not only did she continue to accuse him of sexually assaulting his children, which was never verified by anyone other than her,” Kolski said. “She then relocated to another nation and was able to accuse him of the same claims there.”
