Russian news video with English subtitles

Now with English subtitles, here is the video by Komsomolskaya Pravda, an online Russian daily newspaper, after attempting to investigate the story of Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь).

Komsomolskaya Pravda

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A previous post discussed the content of the video, which contains interviews with Grin followed by the journalist’s efforts to verify what she says, noting frequent inconsistencies in her story.  When the journalist attempts to ask her about evidence that shows she is lying, Grin first refuses to answer. When the journalist asks again, she becomes aggressive and abruptly ends the interview after accusing him of “being paid by an American citizen”.  (NB: Grin is also a US citizen.)

The original, without subtitles, is available here:

 

Marianne Grin: Russian courts rule she lied about violence

In two separate cases, courts in St. Petersburg, Russia have ruled that Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь) and a Russian newspaper, Baltinfo,  engaged in defamation against the father of the abducted children by publishing false statements of violence that had never occurred.

The decisions are available in their original Russian text:

Grin defamation judgment (OCR version in Russian – shorter download)

Grin defamation judgment (original in Russian)

Baltinfo appeal decision (original in Russian)

The decisions, both of which were confirmed on appeal, describe how Grin fabricated a false story of “escaping” violence in Italy. Both Grin and Baltinfo have been ordered to pay the father compensation for moral damages, and to issue public retractions of the false statements.

Grin’s  accusations were as elaborate as they were false, the courts found. For example, in the decision against Grin by the Dzerzhinsky court of St. Petersburg, the judge noted how she had claimed in the tabloid “Pravda.ru” of being beaten and that this led to the loss of partial eyesight in one eye.  Not only was the accusation of violence false (and unconfirmed by evidence), so was Grin’s alleged loss of eyesight. As the judge noted, Grin’s own medical records showed she had been diagnosed 20 years earlier of “a heriditary condition of strabism” in one eye. When her ex-husband filed for divorce, she attempted to attribute this condition to a non-existent violence.

(As noted elsewhere, after 12 years of marriage and four children, Grin began to assert accusations of violence only when her ex-husband filed for divorce.)

The judge also noted how Grin attempted to fabricate evidence in Russia, repeatedly taken the children as her “witnesses” to the Russian police during the many months she denied them any contact with family and relatives, coaching them on what to say.  Yet, the judge observed, the Russian police were unpersuaded by Grin’s obvious attempts to influence the children.

The decision against Baltinfo by a different St. Petersburg court was based on the publication of Grin’s false accusations without attempting to substantiate them.

This is an important win for the family, who have been battling Grin’s false accusation for years. As described elsewhere on this blog, Grin made false accusations of abuse against her own mother following a disagreement between the two. (Also in Russian.) In doing so, Grin invoked her qualification as a lawyer with a Harvard Law degree to have her mother’s parental rights over her step brother revoked, and to have her mother branded as mentally ill in the eyes of immigration authorities at the US Justice Department.

Years later, after her former husband filed for divorce and sought custody of the children in Italy, Grin attempted the same ruse. As Grin’s medical records proved, she made visits to the hospital with a reddened face after adult acne treatments, claiming that she had been beaten.  She also falsified documents in these efforts. The Italian courts dismissed all of her claims of violence. Grin not only made false accusations of abuse against her ex-husband but also against his girl-friend, the nanny that helped raise the children and other women around him. Again, all these charges were dismissed as false.

фото Марианны Гринь

The recent decisions by the Russian courts follow similar decisions in Italy and the USA about Grin’s fabrications of abuse.

Grin abducted her four children after losing custody in Italy after being found by a court-appointed psychologist to be psychologically disturbed. But the problem remains that the children are still in her precarious care.

The Italian press continues to lament that lack of any action being taken to return the children to their family. In an article that appeared this month in the newspaper La Nazione, the paper noted that it was clear in the psych evaluation of June 20, 2011, that “the mother has a gravely disturbed personality” and that “the relationship of the mother with the children is of a strong psychopathic risk” because of behaviors ” that dangerously impact the psychological equilibrium of the children”.

“She was dangerous, and that was known,” writes La Nazione, yet the expert did not recommend restrictions on her visitation with the children, “because actions of  limitation could be read as confirmation of the paranoiac fantasies of the mother.”  As the article concludes, “the mother was paranoid and dangerous to the children, but lets not limit her too much or she will discover that she is paranoid and it is better not to let her find out.”

As one documented example of how Grin has severely abused the children in Russia, earlier this year she Grin placed them into Russian orphanages run by the Chabad-Lubavitch organization.

Members of the staff (also interviewed by Italian journalists) confirmed that Grin had told the children that their father no longer wanted them and would put them into orphanages in Italy if he found them. The children have now confirmed in Russian court that they were told by their mother that they had to come to Russia because their father intended to put their older brother into a mental institution in Italy.

Marianne Grin (photo from La Repubblica newspaper)
Марианны Гринь – фото

Grin’s lies were not believed in the USA, in Italy, or by the Russian courts.  Unfortunately, the children continue to suffer by continuously being brought, by Grin, to police stations and to hospitals to report on alleged abuse. The children are the true victims of their mother’s delusions. The family is also concerned that perhaps she is harming them herself.

Petition to Bring Kids Home – Over 500 Signatures!

You can always count on good people to speak up and lend a hand, all over the world!

Family and friends of the abducted children have been heartened by the response to the petition asking US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to help bring the children home. Since its launch last week, over 500 people from around the world have signed!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/848/883/039/

Those signing hail from Canada, Austria, UK, France, Germany, Norway, Hungary, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria, Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Egypt, South Africa, Qatar, UAE, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and even Russia!

In the United States, the signers come from California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, DC, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Connecticut, Missouri, Massachusetts, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Maryland, Georgia, New Hampshire, Oregon, Ohio, Oklahoma, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Colorado, and Hawaii.

To everyone so far, THANK YOU!

Why does she want to ruin her children’s lives?

One question we repeatedly hear: why is Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь) denying her children all contact with their father, her little cousin of two years, all three grandparents, her aunt and uncles, and their many friends they left behind? A clue may lie in her own sense of abandonment, and the relationships she severed with her parents and the rest of her own family.

As has been pointed out by some of those familiar with her past, when Marianne’s father died in Moscow in 1997, she did not mourn it as a loss.

On the contrary, in letters she sent to friends at the time, she virtually celebrated his passing. She referred to him as her ”so-called father”, disdainfully remarking that he had died “after drinking too much vodka.”  Letter on father’s death

In another letter, she gleefully referred to her father’s death as part of a “count-down” for both parents, remarking that his death was just “one down, one to go…” Letter with “count down” of her parents’ deaths

Grin claimed in her correspondence to have met her father only once in her life, a spin on her personal narrative that she told many people at the time in the USA (and a different story than the one she has been telling in Russia).  Not uncoincidentally, her letters celebrating the passing of her father were sent in August and September 1997, a time when – it subsequently surfaced - Grin was also writing to the US Department of Justice falsely claiming that her mother was abusive towards her and her brother. See her mother’s statement in 2009, submitted in support of the father being custody of the children.

This was all, of course, some years before Grin acquired Russian citizenship.

What is most startling about Grin’s happiness over the actual and prospective death of her parents is how they illustrate what she is now engaged in doing: to inflict her painful personal history on her own children by severing their ties from their father (affectionately referred to in these various letters about her “vodka-drinking” father) and all other family.  It appers she wants her own children to suffer the same fate she believes occurred to her, to repeat what she feels is the source of her own misery and unhappiness in life.

And this comes at a time when children’s relationships with their father is increasingly perceived as a critical element of their growth.  A scientific review of over 500 studies, for example, concluded this year that a nurturing and accepting relationship with one’s father is often more important to healthy psychological development than with one’s mother.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120612101338.htm

It is clear from her correspondence that Grin believes she never had that nurturing and accepting relationship with her own father (or mother), which may explain why she felt nothing about abandoning her children for several months into Chabad-Lubavitch orphanages in Russia (and demanding they keep the children isolated from family).  

More importantly, though, what can be done about this, so that history does not need to repeat itself?

After abducting the children to Russia, Grin has sought help from others in waging war against her own family (and enlisting her children in it), a self-destructive course that only few are willing to aid.  It is still possible for Grin to accept that there are many who care about the children who can assist her in getting the help she needs in order to achieve a decent life, both for herself and also for the children.

Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь) Discovery of Fraud – Part 2

Marianne Grin
Марианны Гринь

Marianne Grin embarked on a campaign of false accusations after the couple separated. During the divorce the judge appointed a psychologist (CTU) to assess the parents for her custody determination.

Excerpts from the CTU – Court Appointed Psychologist’s Report after one of his interviews with Grin:

“According to Ms. Grin, in January 2007, the husband decided to leave the house, but, as had happened before, she implored him to stay and he did, as he did not feel ready to move to a new place. In August 2007, …he decided to move definitively to an apartment belonging to friends. This time she accepted her husband’s decision, but she states of their separation, ‘in no way was it consensual’.

“At the beginning of their separation, the couple’s relationship seems to have stabilized into a sort of equilibrium that has in some way calmed their heated conflicts. In that period Ms. Grin worked, as they had hired two nannies to help with the kids; the husband had full access to the family house, he liberally spent time with the children, and only slept at a different apartment.

“In January 2008, Grin said she asked him to move to America to better cure the older son’s psychological illness and to better cope with the difficulties that she felt were emerging with the youngest son (whom she wanted to treat for autism).”

But the father felt that the older son was being well-followed by professionals in Florence, where he also had friends and family whereas a move would be disruptive, and that the younger son was not autistic (it would later be confirmed the father was right). Grin’s behavior was consistent with what the family and child abuse authorities suspected could be Munchausen by proxy syndrome.

The family remained in Florence.

In the beginning of 2009, Grin embarked on a campaign of false accusations against her former husband, after learning that, two years after their separation, he had begun a serious relationship with another woman.

Parts of her divorce strategy of false accusations are in Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь) – Discovery of Fraud – part 1.

Grin tells her lawyers on March 10, 2009:

“We need to come to an agreement on violence. To make or not to make accusations of domestic violence is a question of Strategy […] My husband is now elsewhere and I should do nothing??”

April 14, 2009

Out of the blue, Grin insists that her ex bring one of the children’s music books to her apartmearrives implies and arrives in the company of a witness, who confirms that he never entered the apartment but stayed outside. Grin stays behind the door and violently slams it on him, cutting and bruising his head, as the witness attested following the incident.

April 15 2009 – first attempt to falsify evidence

There was no interaction between Grin and her ex on April 15, 2009. Instead, as insurance records show, she was undergoing a series of treatments for severe adult nodal acne. On April 15 2009, she went to an appointment with a doctor for treatment with Isotretinoina (Isotretinoin), which would leave her face reddened and dry for days.

The children were with their father on April 15, and Grin took the opportunity to visit the hospital emergency room at 7:03pm, after her acne treatment. At the hospital, she claims her reddened face is due to aggression from her ex and makes a vague claim about pain in her back.

She claims to have been “pushed” on the morning of April 14 when therather dropped off the music. She does not explain to the attending physician why, if this was true, she waited over 36 hours to seek medical attention.

The hospital report indicates she had no bruises, and the x-ray test confirms she had no injuries of any type. They dismiss Grin for lack of anything to treat, and tell her they cannot confirm any evidence of aggression.

April 16, 2009 – second attempt at falsified evidence

The father drops the older children off at school, but Grin insists that her ex bring the youngest one to her. He complies, and again has a witness present. The witness reports that, once again, there was no contact between the parents, and that Grin remained behind the door as her ex dropped off a sleepy child (3 years old).

Later that morning Grin takes photos of her face, what appears to be a cold sore on her upper lip from herpes simplex (Grin had purchased aciclovir dorom, used to treat herpes), claiming it was the result of “being pushed against the door” by her ex. In the photos that Grin takes of her face, it is clearly visible that she has scratched acne and smeared the blood across her cheeks and onto her lip.

With her fabricated injury, Grin then calls an ambulance (for a lip injury) and forces the couple’s 3-year old to ride with her to the emergency room. Years later, in Russian media, she claims there was blood all over the child and in the ambulance. Yet hospital records show she arrived at 9:41am and due to the non-serious nature of her “injury”, was not seen until 10:46 am. The same records show she was dismissed at 11:00 a.m. after only 14 minutes, or about the amount of time necessary for Grin to tell the attending physician she was “attacked” and for the physician to confirm that she had no real injuries.

In her war against her ex, Grin showed the photos of her acne-treated face and herpes lip to the children’s teachers and the parents of their friends – a fact confirmed by the court-appointed psychologist who interviewed the teachers – proudly claiming to be a victim of abuse. She also posted these photos on her website in Russia. But she removed them after being sued for defamation in Russian court (where she also denied ever having accused her ex-husband of violence; it was all, apparently, a mistake by Russian newspapers in reporting what she had told them. She denied ever having spoken of violence).

The hospital record shows the attending physican only noted some “abrasion” on her upper lip and no injuries to her face or head.

Grin later filed a criminal charge against her ex for this fabricated violence.

April 19, 2009 – third attempt to falsify evidence

Given the lack of any finding of injury on April 16, Grin returns to the emergency room three days later complaining of vertigo from the same “incident”. The hospital staff take x-rays but confirm, once again, she has no head trauma.

April 22, 2009

On April 22, Grin used an old doctor’s perscripton from October 2008 to buy a box of Tavor (Lorazepam) and two boxes of Sertalina (Sertraline). This is an odd combination as Lorazepam comes with a specific warning that it should not be taken by people with depression, and Sertaline is for depression.

Lorazepam is used for the short-term treatment of anxiety, insomnia, acute seizures including status epilepticus and sedation of hospitalized patients, as well as sedation of aggressive patients. The side effects are similar to what Grin claims in her doctor visits: feeling light-headed, fainting, dizziness, blurred vision.

Sertralina (Sertraline) is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. Sertraline is primarily used to treat major depression in adult outpatients as well as obsessive–compulsive, panic, and social anxiety disorders. It has the following side effects: Nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, loss of appetite, increased sweating, diarrhea, upset stomach, or trouble sleeping may occur

April 24, 2009 – fourth attempt to falsify evidence

On April 24, Grin redoubles her effort to obtain some type of medical documentation to “prove” that she sustained an injury at the hands of her ex-husband. She is confounded by his insistence on having witnesses present whenever he drops off the children.

So she returns to her April 16 hospital visit and meets with her local doctor who repeats in his note what Grin says, that she suffered an “aggression” on April 16, 2009 casuing trauma “cranio-facciale” with injury to her lip and that she claims to have vertigo. He gives her 21 days of rest. She asks him to authorize an eye examination, which he does.

May 26, 2009 – fifth attempt to falsify evidence

Dr. La Torre (optometrist) does eye exam of Grin and writes to Dr Seghi that he could find “no alterations of sight attributed to trauma”. Instead, he notes that Grin suffers from strabism, a condition of lacking stereo-scopic vision, and he also indicates this is not related to trauma.

What La Torre and Seghi do not know (but La Torre confirms in any event) is that Grin has had issues with her vision at least since 1993 when she discovered, while at Harvard, that she had strabismus. She summarized the discovery of her hereditary condition after visiting the Harvard University Health Services (using their stationary): “My left eye’s strabismus is hereditary. So watch out for my children”

June 22, 2010 – sixth attempt to falsify evidence

A year later, even after a prosecutor and judge dismissed Grin’s accusations following a police investigation in which she was found to be lying, Grin continues to try to use her hereditary vision problem against her ex-husband. She takes another eye test called a “threshold exam” in which she tries to claim that she has a problem with her vision due to trauma.

But the operator who administers the exam catches Grin lying, and highlights her as a patient who is faking symptoms, noting on the exam report: “Low Patient Reliability” (under the notation “FASTPAC”) in the print out below.

Undeterred, Grin continues her claims of “loss of eyesight” when she arrives in Russia, claiming to Russian reporters that her hereditary condition was instead a result of domestic violence. She tells this to on-line tabloids like “Pravda.ru” which make no effort to confirm her accusations, do not contact any witnesses, and perhaps are ignorant to the dismissal of her false accusations.

After three years Grin realizes she has lost her ability to manipulate and further slow the Italianlegal process. She lost custody of her children, was given only 6 days per month visitation as she was deemed to be inadequate as a parent and mentally unstable and she kidnaps the four children out of Italy and hides them in institutions in Russia.

What Grin did to try to hurt her ex-husband was eventually stopped by the justice system. But almost one year has passed and the children have not come home

To Russia with Love: two Florentine children find their lost friends

Emma awaits her friend, Sara, at her last day of school in Russia

Travels with Emma and Edoardo to St. Petersburg on the trail (found) of the little ones kidnapped by their mother

From the Corriere Fiorentino (Florence edition of the Corriere della Sera), May 31, 2012: Corriere – page 1; Corriere – page 2; Corriere – page 3

ST. PETERSBURG  – Emma clasps tight in her hand a small card, as if it were a trophy. “This is priceless,” she tells her mother, skipping. Inside is the name of her dear friend, in Italian and Russian. It is priceless because that card is proof of an encounter that took too many months to occur. Mission accomplished. Emma and Sara, “friends for life,” finally managed to hug and now Emma is skipping as her dark eyes brim with joy. Her emotion from clasping that card so tight prompts her mother, Francesca, to tuck it safely into her purse so it doesn’t crumple.

Emma had to come to Russia to see her friend, and while preparing for this important trip she seemed much older than her nine years.  She waited for Sara for nine months in Florence, for her return from summer vacation. She was supposed to celebrate her birthday but that party never took place because Sara, together with her brothers – all in the custody of their father  by a court decree after the parent’s separation – was taken away to Russia, far from the father, the aunt and uncles, from their friends and from the lives they had always lived.

The criminal code refers to this as parental child abduction, a polite term for kidnapping, but for Emma it is simply called injustice. “Why did they leave without even saying goodbye?” she kept asking.  For months her parents hid the truth, and gradually her mother tried to explain.

Even Edoardo, 13 years old, last summer waited in vain for his friend Elliot to return from vacation. He waited because after having devoured together many fantasy novels, they decided to write a book based on real people. “We wanted to see who could write more – explained Edo – when he came to sleep at my house we would stay awake until late playing videogames and bouncing ideas off of each other about what to write.”

Elliot got all the way to 90 pages. That book is now in a computer file that remained in Florence when Elliot was forced to burn all of his bridges with the life he had always lived.

Michael, the “orphaned” father of his four children (Sam, 14, Elliot, 12, Sara, 9, and Ezra, 6) is an American lawyer who has spent his life in Italy.  Accustomed to difficult cases, he now finds himself with the most difficult battle of all. But he refuses to treat it as war. “I never declared war on anyone.  I only want my children to be well,” he repeats.  Notwithstanding the odyssey that he’s living through, he doesn’t use ferocious words against his ex wife. Of her he says only that, “she is ill and needs help, but refuses to accept any. She doesn’t realize the harm she is doing to the children.”

The Florence court two years ago awarded him sole custody of the children. A court-appointed psychologist painted a clear picture of the cyclone that was raging through Marianne’s mind. “Psychologically suffering with unpredictable and bizarre behavior, driven by paranoid fantasies” and victim of “plots and persecutions.”

Despite this psychological portrait, the judge allowed the mother to take the children on vacation as if that evaluation had never existed. Since last summer Michael’s life has been a pursuit without end. When he discovered where the children were located, he went to find them, a battle against his ex wife – who wants to prevent any contact with the children – and even the Russian media since Marianne presents her situation as an escape from Italy rendered necessary by a violent husband.  Only one newspaper, Fontanka, dug further, thanks to a reporter, Irina Tumakova, who did not limit herself to Marianne’s accusations but who actually read the documents, spoke with the protagonists, and in the end arrived at a different truth.  It was she who called the police when, a month ago, Michael came to the school where the children had been recently enrolled.

Only after the police arrived did the school director allow the children to see their father.  “He has his parental rights,” the policemen explained, “why are you not letting him see them?”  Since that moment, Michael’s life has been based on those trips to Russia, round trip Florence-St. Petersburg, to see his children, if only for a few minutes.

An apartment on the outskirts of town, three school changes: nine months of life as fugitives

A neighborhood of tall apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city, near the sea, with the occasional playground: this is where the fugitive children are now living. By car, it takes about an hour to get from there to the center of this imperial city, which was the court of the tsars. This suburb with its construction works strewn about seems so far from the postcards containing palaces and churches.

Since they arrived in Russia, at the end of August, the children have a fugitive’s life. They have changed school three times:  first one, then to an ultra-orthodox Jewish orphanage, from which the mother took the children out only on weekends, and finally this blue institute near the apartment where they now live.

Today the school is festive because it is the last day of elementary school.  There’s a play, music, and song, and the presentation of end-of-the-year reports.

When Sara sees her dear friend she panics and runs away.  Emma is holding a present for that birthday that was never celebrated. She drew two little girls who are holding each others’ hands. She wrote, “Emma and Sara: friends for life” and she had it printed on a t-shirt.

Edo meets Elliot and gives him a videogame as a present. They talk non-stop the entire morning. It’s the magic of children who manage to latch onto an uninterrupted thread months later, as if no time had gone by.

There she is, the fugitive woman. Wearing a fuchsia pullover and with a camera in hand, she mingles with the other mothers. When she sees the friends from Italy, together with her ex-husband and the children’s uncle Kevin who came from the USA, she cannot hide her anger. She speaks to the children’s friends, scolding them, “Why did you come without telling me? This shows a lack of respect!”

Emma tries to say hello to her friend from the distance, and then breaks out in tears. She only manages to deliver her gift as Marianne takes Sara away.  But a couple of hours later the unexpected call arrives: the children can come to her house. When Sara opens the door, she is wearing the t-shirt that Emma made. Edoardo and Elliot play ball like old times.

In order for this to occur, however, Marianne had imposed her rules, which seem like those dictated by a hostage-taker negotiating the release of one of the hostages:  telephone calls only from a Russian phone number, no adults may be present, the children must arrive on their own to the gate, and she alone will come down and get them.

Earlier in the day, Marianne had explained to Edoardo – why him is anyone’s guess – that she has little money left.  She said that because dentists are expensive, she had to have the children’s braces removed from their teeth.  I wanted to ask Marianne why she refused to accept the father’s offer to pay for all of their health expenses, dental included, in one of the best medical clinics in the city.  But she didn’t want questions and instead just shouted, “go away, I’m calling the police.”

The meeting of the children lasts an hour.  When they leave the apartment, Emma and Edoardo have happiness painted on their faces. “Can we come back tomorrow?” they ask. Marianne will disappear into a void for the nth time. Her phone will ring unanswered in the days that follow.

The mother’s lies: “Papa, why do you want to lock my brother up in an asylum?”

The next day, the father returns to the school with Edo and uncle Kevin. The only one present is Elliot. Sam – the previous day – had attacked the father from behind, when he saw him at school, and doesn’t want to see him.

The meeting with Elliot takes place in a room in the presence of the school psychologist. At the beginning he refuses to speak with his father or to look him in the eye. Then, between laughs at his uncle Kevin’s clowning and his friend Edoard, he levels the following accusation at his dad: “you were here in court on February 7, my birthday, and you didn’t even give me a present. You want to take us away from here in order to put my brother Sam into an insane asylum.”

Michael calmly explains that this isn’t true at all, that he didn’t even know where they were then [NDR and that the accusation of putting his brother in an asylum is false].  And in a moment he understands that the hardest rock to climb won’t be to win a judicial battle, but to combat the lies and phantoms that Marianne is fabricating day after day in the minds of the children.

Antonella Mollica
antonella.mollica@rcs.it

Contact!

With the help of a no-nonsense Russian police officer and the attention brought by an investigative Russian journalist, the father was finally able to meet with the older three children earlier this month. The meetings were brief, and raise serious concerns about what the children are living through. That the meetings even took place, however, brought a sigh of relief to family and friends.

As to how this happened, the father asks that we convey his expression of gratitude:

“If a foreign parent ever finds themselves in my same situation in America or Italy, I can only hope that they will be treated with the same dignity, common sense, and intelligence of the Russian police lieutenant called to assist the situation at the children’s school. In five minutes, this single Russian police officer accomplished more for our children than any other high-level authority, institution, or religious official in any of the three countries involved these past several months.”

Developments leading up to the meeting

As reported by Le Iene (A version with English subtitles is available here.  Марианны Гринь – интервью итальянским журналистам русские субтитры), the father learned at the end of April that the children’s mother, Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь), had removed them from the Chabad-Lubavitch institutions in which they had been living.

The office of the Children’s Ombuds authority for the St Petersburg region confirmed that three of them had been placed by their mother in a public school on the outskirts of the city (their third school change this past year in Russia), and the youngest apparently in a kindergarten in the same area.

Joy but concerns about the children’s future

The father went to the school to try to see the three older children.  A journalist following the case for a St. Petersburg newspaper provided some of the details of the events:

• Help from Russian police.  It was a cold morning the day the father went to visit the children at the school, but the guards/administrators initially refused let him enter. With the aid of a Russian journalist following the case, the police were called, and a police lieutenant appeared within 30 minutes to ask what the problem was. “This father wants to see his children,” it was explained. “Why are you not letting him?” Asked the lieutenant. “Have his parental rights been suspended? Is he breaking any windows or kicking down doors? He is the father! Why are you treating him this way?”  The school administrators changed their approach and immediately said the father would be able to see the children as soon as the director arrived.
• School accepts to arrange meetings.  The school director was initially cautious, especially since Grin had put a letter in the children’s file stating that “as the parent with Russian citizenship only the mother can make decisions about who they are able to visit, and that is only the mother and her colleagues.” (The letter does not say who there “colleagues” are.) After being assured of the father’s good intentions, however, the director agreed to organize meetings in the presence of the school psychologist.
• Children being subjected to severe alienation and paranoia about family and friends.  The meetings with the children, which were brief, confirmed that the mother has used these past several months to frighten them and create resentment even against their grandparents and their little 2-year old cousin. The mother’s anger and paranoid fears, expressed through the children, was palpable. Two of the children refused to speak in English, merely repeating the mother’s accusations against the father in Russian, blaming him for forcing them to live in Russia. The children claimed the mother had to flee Italy because the father wanted to put the oldest “into an insane asylum” (manicomio), one of the bizarre lies that Grin had told different media in Russia. (None of which ever bothered to read either the court decree about the children or check the fact that institutions (“manicomi”) have not existed in Italy for over 30 years.)
• Commitments to follow up. The school director was complimentary of the father’s calm approach and offered to continue to organize contact with the children.
• But still no site of Ezra, the youngest.

Monitoring of situation by Russian authorities

After Grin’s alarming statements over the internet about the Russian court’s rejection of her request to domicile the children with her in Russia, the Ombuds office for the St. Petersburg region confirmed that they are watching the situation closely. They indicated having received letters of concern from the children’s family as well as from the members of the Mellersh family in England.  They also mentioned receiving international press inquiries.

The Ombuds office noted that Grin has been uncooperative with their efforts to arrange visits with the children and their father, and was found to have lied about their place of residence. That Grin now appears to be using the children’s isolation to alienate them from their family and friends is another important area of concern regarding the children’s well-being. The fact that her behavior in this regard had been well-documented in Italy provides further evidence of the damage the children suffer in her care.

Still, it was good

Despite the above, the father reports being elated at the contact. Progress was made, and the difficulties he found were not insurmountable. Rather, they are same as those encountered when Grin was documented as engaging in alienating behavior in Italy.  Experience shows the children will rebound as long as they know they are loved, and that they have not been abandoned by the father, their friends, or the rest of their family.

And the first steps are always the hardest.

Марианны Гринь – интервью итальянским журналистам (русские субтитры)

История Марианны Гринь – интервью

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   На Марианны Гринь дала интервью итальянским журналистам.Так, женщина с очень правдоподобным изумлением опровергает слова о том, что в России сдала детей в интернат. А следом – директор этого интерната и одна из учительниц простодушно сообщают, что детки у них ночевали, питались, учились.

В конце, когда Марианна решила, что камера уже выключена, она вдруг сбросила маску. Только что лицо её сияло улыбкой. И вдруг оно резко искажается. Грязно выругавшись в адрес мужа, женщина говорит, что намерена увезти детей из России.

Video with Russian subtitles

Alienazione Genitoriale blog parla del caso di Marianne Grin (Parental Alienation blog highlights episode of Le Iene)

English version below

The Alienazione Genitoriale blog parla del caso di Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь): Alienatrice in TV:  ”me ne frego”

Le Iene intervistano una madre, certificata come «gravemente disturbata», che ha sottratto i figli portandoli in Russia quando il tribunale li ha affidati al loro papà.

Il disturbo mentale traspare dall’intervista.

Appare chiaramente che la donna, avvocatessa, è una mentitrice compulsiva (racconta un mucchio di falsità, venendo smentita anche dalla propria madre “o è diabolica o è clinicamente malata”), che fa uso delle tipiche false accuse (accusare il padre di violenze già giudicate inesistenti) e che, davanti alle telecamere ed ai figli, le reitera per alienarli chiedendo al padre di “smettere con le violenze”!

Trattandosi di 4 bambini abbastanza grandicelli in balia da meno di un anno di questa madre, al momento sembra improbabile l’avvio di una PAS.

Ma certamente occorre che vengano protetti facendo rispettare la legge e rimediando al gravissimo errore del Tribunale, che avrebbe potuto impedire la sottrazione.

ENGLISH

The Alienazione Genitoriale blog in Italy has reposted the May 2, 2012 episode of Le Iene about the father’s search for his children, and their cruel and abusive treatment by Marianne Grin to alienate them from him and family, as caught on camera.  The blog post is Alienatrice in TV:  ”me ne frego” (Alienator on TV: “I don’t give a damn”).

Le Iene interview a mother, certified as “seriously disturbed”, who kidnapped her children and took them to Russia when the court awarded custody to their father.

Her mental illness appears evident from the interview.

It seems clear that the women, a lawyer, is a compulsive liar (she makes a series of false statements, contradicted even by her own mother who says her daughter is “either evil or clinically sick or both”) and uses typical false accusations (domestic violence allegations against the father that had already been dismissed as nonexistent). In front of the cameras and her own children, she repeats the false accusations in order to alienate the children from their father, asking him to, “stop with the violence”!

Given that these are four children all of a certain age who have been entirely dependent on this mother for almost a year, it seems improbable that this is only the start of a Parental Alienation Syndrome.

It is necessary to protect these children, by applying the law and remedying a serious mistake of the court, which permitted the kidnapping to occur in the first place.

“I will leave Russia!” Marianne Grin on TV, in front of children

The Iene TV show demonstrates how easy it is to expose false claims. Just check them.

- with English subtitles

- русские субтитры

On May 2, 2012, the hugely respected Italian investigative news program, Le Iene, aired a report on the children’s abduction by their mother, Marianne Grin (Марианны Гринь).

In Pelazza: Social Services in Russia, senior Iene reporter Luigi Pelazza flew to St. Petersburg to investigate the children’s living conditions in Chabad orphanages, their denial of contact with their father and family, and their isolation from childhood friends.

Luigi Pelazza, investigative reporter for Le Iene in Italy

Pelazza interviewed Grin and let her speak. He then showed how each of her statements are plainly contradicted by official records, her own mother, and the people in Russia who have seen how she has treated the children since abducting them at the end of August 2011.

Pelazza also catches Grin showing why she was deemed an inadequate parent by the courts. With all four children seated in front of her, she makes false accusations of violence against the father and, despite Pelazza’s humanitarian entreaties, refuses even to let them see a video of his greetings. Still in front of the children, she makes a vulgar Italian gesture and states she “doesn’t give a damn” what the law says (“me ne frego!”).

Some of the highlights:

• Marianne Grin’s mother, Inessa Grin, looking vibrant and intellingent, is interviewed via Skype after Marianne claims her mother “has Alzheimers and lives in a nursing home in California.” Inessa complains that her daughter told the same lie 10 years ago, after she refused her daughter’s demand she sign a false declaration. Inessa expresses deep concern for the children, and fears over her daughter’s mental instability.
• After Grin denies having put her children into orphanages, teachers confirm the children lived in Chabad-Lubavitch run institutes “for children whose parents suffer from alcoholism and drug addiction”. They teachers also comment on Grin’s instability as a parent.
• Rabbi Chaim Tolochinsky, the director of the yeshiva/orphanage where Grin had abandoned her sons, says it is “evident” Grin has psychological problems and is “acting like a hunted animal”. He doubts she is able to provide basic care for the children.
• But the most unsettling and bizarre statements is from Grin herself, when believes the cameras are off. She bluntly confides her real plans, and they don’t include Russia: “If that a–hole [expletive] continues, we’ll go to another country. I have the financial resources, so if he continues, ‘arriverderci!’” And, again, all while she is seated in front of the children. As the court-appointed expert in Italy observed, Grin’s behavior is “pathogenic,” meaning she transmits her paranoias and disturbed version of reality to the children.

The Italian news program makes clear – through Grin’s own behavior – why the courts in Italy ruled her unfit to have custody of the children, and why Russian courts have so far been reluctant to second-guess that decision.