Couple Held In Abuse Of 2 Children During Flight

Couple Held In Abuse Of 2 Children During Flight

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

A Phoenix couple who were returning to the United States after adopting two 4-year-old Russian girls were arrested at Kennedy International Airport for physically and verbally abusing the children during the 10-hour flight from Moscow, the authorities said yesterday.

Richard Thorne, 48, and his wife, Karen, 42, were seen striking the girls in the chest, face and head with such force and regularity that the children screamed and cried almost constantly during the flight, officials said. According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Thorne was heard shouting ''shut up'' and threatening that they would be sent back to Russia.

''Several passengers and flight attendants tried to intervene and were rebuffed by the defendants,'' said Mary de Bourbon, a District Attorney's office spokeswoman in Queens.

After the couple's plane landed at Kennedy on Wednesday night, several passengers were so outraged that they waited at the terminal until the Thornes were arrested, officials said. The girls, not related to each other before adoption, were in the custody of the city's Administration for Children's Services yesterday.

The Thornes were charged with endangering the welfare of a child, third-degree assault and second-degree harassment, officials said.

The Thornes and their adopted girls were aboard Delta Flight 31, which makes a direct link between Moscow and New York City, said Kimberly King, a spokeswoman for the airline. About 200 passengers flew on the plane, Ms. King said, though she did not know in what section the Thornes sat.

Brenda Cruz, a flight attendant, said she saw Mrs. Thorne pull on one girl's arms with ''extreme force'' and hit her in the back of the legs, causing the girl to ''fall suddenly,'' the complaint said. The girl, it said, was visibly in pain, cowered each time that Mrs. Thorne hit her, and shielded herself with her hands.

One girl suffered an abrasion to her arm, according to the complaint.

Hand in Hand, a Phoenix-based international adoption agency through which the Thornes adopted the girls, could not be reached last night for comment. No address was listed under the agency's name, and no one answered the telephone.

Flicka Van Praagh, who has been director of international adoptions at Spence-Chapin Services for Families and Children in Manhattan since 1975, questioned how much preparation the couple had received. ''In 22 years, I have never heard of something like this,'' she said. ''Probably these poor kids had never been on an airplane before. I doubt the family spoke Russian. You think of the fright and the upset of these children, even with the best of families.''

In recent years, many Americans, who must wait for years before adopting a child in the United States, have turned to foreign adoptions.

In each state, social workers evaluate potential adoptive parents. But the parents are sometimes not prepared when they meet the children, who may suffer from histories of physical and psychological abuse.

''Communication is a big issue,'' said Dr. Jane Aronson, director of the International Adoption Medical Consultation Services at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. ''In not being able to communicate, the kids and parents become frustrated. But I can't imagine how anyone could be driven to hit a child they've just adopted.''