JET ABUSE MOM SAYS KIDS WERE TO BLAME

New York Daily News (NY)

Author: PETE DONOHUE and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

The Phoenix woman accused of hitting her two newly adopted Russian 4-year-olds on a flight from Moscow turned the tables on her children yesterday, testifying that the girls shrieked and terrorized strangers from the start.

But Karen Thorne, 42, emphatically denied abusing the girls. She said she was "just getting very frustrated" with one daughter when she disciplined her for screaming throughout the 10-hour trip.

"I grabbed her hand and smacked it and said, 'No,' " she said. "I was upset and frustrated, and probably angry, too."

Karen and Richard Thorne charged with assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child have spent two days in Queens Family Court this week, traveling from Phoenix to fight for custody of the girls.

On Monday, two passengers from the May 28 flight testified the couple slapped the girls and told them to shut up. During a July court appearance, a flight attendant said she saw Karen Thorne hit her daughter with a utensil.

But in 90 minutes of testimony yesterday morning, Thorne added a new dimension to her relationship with the girls describing her failed attempts to get pregnant, her lengthy efforts to adopt and the long process she and her husband went through to get the girls from Russia.

After taking a 300-mile train ride to the girls' rural village, the couple rushed to meet them in their orphanage, she said. Immediately there was trouble.

"One of the little girls came running to us," she said. "The other one had to be carried. . . . She was crying. There were tears coming down her face."

Despite five straight days of visits, the crying daughter still had not adjusted when she was released to the Thornes on May 23. Soon the other girl began copying her moodiness, with fits of crying, hitting and beating up her toys, she said.

"I was very concerned about it," Thorne testified. "[She] had never acted cooperative toward us. I was very concerned about what was going to happen on the airplane when we were finally alone with her."