Parents to Fight Charges Of Abusing Children on Jet
Parents to Fight Charges Of Abusing Children on Jet
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
A lawyer for the Arizona couple who were accused two weeks ago of abusing the two children they had just adopted in Russia on the flight home denied yesterday that they mistreated the girls and rejected an offer to plead to a lesser charge to settle the case.
''There will be no plea of guilty of any kind,'' the lawyer, Harold Levy, told reporters outside criminal court in Queens. ''They're not guilty of anything.''
The couple, Richard and Karen Thorne, were returning from Moscow May 28 with the two 4-year old girls when a Delta flight attendant and several passengers observed them screaming at the children, striking them ''forcefully and repeatedly over a period of 10 hours'' and threatening to send them back to Russia, according to the police report. At least seven passengers missed their connecting flights to make sure the Thornes were arrested upon arrival. The couple were charged with assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of the children.
The Thornes spent the night in detention and were released on $5,000 bail. They are now trying to regain custody of the girls as their case wends its way through the courts. Normally, the Federal Government has jurisdiction in incidents occurring on aircraft, but agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who met the plane, declined to get involved, leaving the matter to city law enforcement officials.
The girls, who met in a Russian orphanage, are living in a private foster care home in Queens. They were placed with one family through the city Administration for Children's Services, then were moved to a family of Russian descent. Maggie Lear, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that ''it didn't work out'' with the second family, and that the girls had been returned to the first family.
The Thornes, under supervision, visited the girls on Tuesday, for the first time since they all arrived from Russia. The city has granted the Thornes permission for a second visit on Friday.
The Thornes, holding hands, looked somewhat shellshocked when they appeared in court yesterday morning and faced a battery of television cameras and reporters.
''We were happy to see the kids,'' Richard Thorne, 48, said. ''We want to get them and go home.'' Karen Thorne, 42, added: ''This whole thing's been a nightmare for us.''
Jane Manning, an assistant district attorney, told Judge Suzanne Melendez that if the Thornes pleaded guilty to the charges, they would be spared a potential sentence of two years and three months in jail and instead would be granted three years' probation with the requirement that they attend parenting classes for an unspecified period of time.
Mr. Levy said that he wanted the charges dropped or he would go to trial. He said that three other passengers had come forward after reading news accounts of the charges against the couple and were prepared to testify that the Thornes had reacted as any parent would in a high-stress situation and had not crossed the line of abuse.