My name is Anthony, My son August (Oggy for short) was KIDNAPPED by his mother. After exhausting many attempts to stabilize my wife’s mental health, I filed for custody of our son in the Hawaii court system. Almost immediately, my wife took my son, August, and booked a flight to LAX before flying to her native country, Greece. It has been over a year since she illegally took my child.

Greece is a signatory country of the Hague Convention of International Child Abduction, however there is no record of any child ever being returned from Greece to the United States.  Though pressing criminal kidnapping charges in Hawaii could be an effective remedy, the charges would hold little weight against a mother who has already failed to appear multiple times.

The Hawaii Courts have awarded me Physical and Legal Custody of my son, but no one in the local or federal government have assisted in efforts to bring Oggy home safely.  In 2017, the Justice Departmnet reported that an estimated 155, 800 children are victims of “serious” parental abductions each year, but yet only 4, 500 arrests for parental abduction are made. I never thought that my child and I would become a statistic and I will continue to fight to make sure that we do not stay one.

I am asking for your help, on behalf of myself and all other parents and children who are a victim to this crime, to petition to the state, federal governments and the respective agencies to enact a  procedure that will require overt actions to effectively bring our children home, where they belong. 

(I Nicole Priola and created this petition in efforts to help bring my nephew home.)