Parents Get Girls Back / Accused of abuse, Arizona couple regains custody

Newsday (Melville, NY)

Author: Karen Freifeld. STAFF WRITER

A Queens Family Court judge yesterday returned two Russian girls to the adoptive parents he earlier ruled had used excessive force on the children during their flight to the United States last May.

Judge Joseph Lauria allowed Richard and Karen Thorne to regain custody of the girls, both now 5 years old, with the stipulation that they continue the court-ordered therapy and allow the authorities and their adoption agency to supervise and monitor the family for the next six to 12 months.

"Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, the professionals in this case recommend the release of the children to you," Lauria told the Phoenix couple in his Jamaica courtroom yesterday afternoon. "I join in the hopefulness of that release." He added, "Your journey from Moscow ends today and your journey as parents begins."

The girls, whose names are not being published at the request of the judge, were unrelated and living in an orphanage in Voronezh, about 12 miles north of Moscow, when the Thornes met them May 19 and adopted them. The children were removed by the city's Administration for Children's Services on May 28 after their Delta flight landed at Kennedy Airport.

Passengers and flight attendants had accused the couple of physically and verbally abusing the children during the 10-hour flight. The Thornes were arrested and charged with assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of the children.

Yesterday, after leaving Family Court, the couple went to Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens, where Judge Jeffrey Lebowitz conditionally dismissed the criminal charges provided the Thornes follow the courts' orders and stay out of trouble for the next year. Lebowitz also issued a limited order of protection, barring the Thornes from striking their children. Even if they children get difficult, he said, they could not use corporal punishment.

"We're done," said a jubilant and relieved Karen Thorne afterward. "We have no intention of bouncing them [the children] off walls." She said that she and her husband were headed home to Phoenix today.

The children are currently with Karen Thorne's brother and his wife in Phoenix. After they lived in foster homes in New York and Arizona, Lauria agreed to place them with the family in October. The Thornes said they have visited the girls there every night. On weekends, the girls have come home, under the supervision of Karen Thornes' parents, as required by Lauria.

The couple said the children have adapted well to life in the United States. "Their English is great," said Richard Thorne, 49, adding that the children no longer speak Russian at all. They like pizza, hot dogs and ice cream, Karen Thorne, 43, said, as well as books with Barney the dinosaur and Arthur the aardvark. "And we work with them on color and numbers and counting," she said.

"The family is bonding and is functioning at a far better level," said Katerina Contaratos, attorney for Children's Services, agreeing with the judge's decision to return the children.

In October, Lauria ruled the Thornes had used "excessive force" on the children during the flight to the United States. "In quieting these 4-year-old, non-English-speaking children, the instinctive response of both parents was to shout at them in English, to slap their faces and bodies and further manhandle them," Lauria said at the time.

Witnesses testified they heard Karen Thorne tell the children, "We're the only family you have. Nobody else wants you," and "shut up," and that Richard Thorne called one of the girls "a little bitch." A flight attendant also testified she saw Karen Thorne hit one of the girls over the head repeatedly with metal utensils, but Lauria threw out that charge for lack of proof. The couple continue to deny they did anything wrong.

A former prosecutor and one-time defense attorney, Lauria said he had seen much worse cases of child abuse in his time. But, he said, "the concern was that the incidents described were a preview of more serious conduct."

"It was a lengthy lesson for the parents," he said. But "in retrospect I believe it built a stronger family."