Jonathon Colombini was taken to Cuba early last month by his mother, who is under investigation in the embezzlement of $150,000 from a former employer, McKenzie Petroleum in Key Largo, Fla. Jon Colombini, the boy's father, said he was not notified when the mother, Arletis Blanco, 29, fled to Cuba with the child.
The couple, who were divorced in 1998, were awarded joint custody.
Jon Colombini, 31, and attorney Michael Berry of Clearwater, Fla., traveled to Pinar Del Rio, a town in western Cuba, to talk to Blanco in an effort to persuade her to allow their son to return to the United States.
Blanco, who was born in Cuba, fled to the island on a boat with her son; her boyfriend, Augustin Lemus, 37; and their infant daughter. They have been living with Lemus' relatives in Pinar del Rio.
Blanco has told Cuban authorities she wants to remain in Cuba.
Elian Gonzalez, 7, was the little boy who arrived in south Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999 after his mother perished at sea when the pair attempted to flee Cuba for the United States. The Justice Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service seized Elian at gunpoint and returned him to impoverished communist Cuba to live with his father, after months of legal conflict with his Miami relatives, who wanted to keep custody of him.
Curiously, the liberal church groups and other leftist organizations that agitated for Elian's return to dictator Fidel Castro's Cuba have been quiet about this "reverse Elian" case.
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