I am not a monster, says Baby Sam's dad

By: STEPHEN NOHLGREN

St. Petersburg Times

Christopher Vietri says Sam's adoptive parents are to blame for the heart-wrenching custody dispute.

Christopher Vietri won a priceless legal victory Friday when the Alabama Supreme Court awarded him custody of Baby Sam, the 4 1/2-year-old son he's never met.

In the court of public opinion, he hasn't fared as well.

For days, newspapers and television screens have carried images of a little Tuscaloosa boy who has no idea his world is about to topple. Mark and Tracy Johnson, the adoptive parents who have raised him since birth, have pleaded to Vietri through the media to let Sam stay with them.

Think of what's best for Sam, they have said, tugging at parental hearts in both states.

On Wednesday, Vietri held his own news conference to answer back. If anyone's to blame for this mess, he said, it's the Johnsons and how they behaved after Sam was born in 1996.

"I'd like the truth to be known," Vietri told reporters from his home. "Eleven weeks after my son was born, they found out about me, but they decided to go against me and against their contract with ABC and not return my child."

Sam was 3 days old when the Johnsons picked him up at Tampa's Adoptions By Choice agency. They signed a contract acknowledging that their proposed adoption was "at risk" because the biological father had not been found.

They promised to return the baby if ABC couldn't terminate the father's rights in court.

When Sam was nearly 11 weeks old, ABC broke horrifying news: Sam's biological mother had told Vietri that the baby had been stillborn. After unraveling that lie, Vietri had secured a Pinellas court order to get the baby back.

The Johnsons, who had bonded with the infant, chose to fight - first in Florida and later in Alabama.

Interstate adoption disputes often take years to conclude, said Vietri's attorney, Lawrence Liebling. A biological parent who wins always ends up looking like an ogre, because the child has grown.

"I think the Johnsons were well aware of the delays in the court system and used that to their advantage," Liebling said. "The child now has to pay the price for the strategy the Johnsons employed."

The Johnsons were celebrating Thanksgiving with relatives and could not be reached for comment. They have said they kept Sam, in part, because the adoption agency indicated that Vietri had abused Sam's then 17-year-old biological mother during her pregnancy and then walked out on her.

Mark Johnson, 36, reiterated that charge this week.

"Who does the law serve?" he asked. "It serves a man who abused and abandoned a birth mother over a child."

Vietri, 31, said he split up with Natasha Gawronski after she threw him out of their apartment, took money from an adoption agency and refused to have anything more to do with him.

When Gawronski was one month pregnant, police found her with a split lip and a separated shoulder. She said Vietri had choked her and shoved her down. Vietri said she had tried to leap from a speeding car. He said he grabbed her arm to save her and that she injured her lip while biting him on the hand.

Police arrested him for assault, then dropped the charges when she recanted her story and supported his version, according to court documents.

"Look at the police report. It tells you everything," Vietri told reporters Wednesday. "I never put my hands on her in a way to harm her. I would never do that to a pregnant woman or any woman."

Gawronski could not be reached for comment. But Erika Vietri, whom Christopher met soon after his breakup with Gawronski, said he has never raised a hand to her.

The Vietris have a son, Nicholas, who is a year younger than Sam. He tickled a television reporter and cuddled with his grandmother Wednesday while his parents faced the cameras.

"(Sam) is going to come home to a loving little brother, a loving stepmother, and he's going to be all right," Vietri said. "I promise you."

The Johnsons have a few days to ask for a rehearing. If that fails, the court's ruling envisions a mid-December transfer.

The Johnsons have said they may continue to fight, but they have also consulted a counselor about how to break the news to Sam.

The Johnsons say Vietri has never called or spoken to them, although they have accepted gifts from him for Sam. They questioned Vietri's sincerity because they said he hasn't tried to contact his son.

Vietri said the Johnsons have prevented him from contacting Sam. Attorneys always have done the negotiating.

Vietri said he wants to take his family to Alabama to start easing into Sam's life, but has received no assurances that the Johnsons will accept him. Liebling said he suggested holding the news conference to bypass the lawyers and make that pitch directly to the Johnsons through the media.

"Please let me see my son," Vietri said. "At least let me come to Alabama and spend some time with him so he's not going to walk into a strange house with strange people."

Previously, Vietri has said it would confuse Sam to see or talk to the Johnsons after any transfer.

On Wednesday, he thanked them "for taking very good care of my son" and said he would allow them some role in Sam's life after an initial adjustment period.

"I don't want him to not know who the people were who loved him when all this was going on."