Stop the abuse of Luka Kačer and protect him from being forced back into harm. Support his right to safety with his mother.

My name is Tereza Kačerová and I am the mother of nine-year-old Luka. Since he was only 3.5 months old, his father — American actor Trent Garrett — has been trying to rip him away from me. He even told me in writing he would drag me through court until I had nothing left — the one promise he has kept.

Over nine years he has filed 11 restraining orders, including one to ban me from coming within 200 meters of my own baby. He demanded access to my diaries and calendars and that I report every trip we took outside the county (not country) - why we left, how we got there, where we slept and the phone numbers and addresses of every place.

In 2024, through 204 counts of perjury and fraud, he secured a Texas judge whose campaign was largely financed by his lawyer. That judge gave him primary custody, leaving me with only a handful of nights per month and (despite all the evidence pointing the other direction) no rights over Luka’s health, medical or psychological care, schooling, or even his passport.

The consequences for Luka have been devastating. At nine years old he began wetting himself day and night, his grades fell by 25%, and he developed dark circles under his eyes like bruises. When he begged to stay with me, he was threatened with more legal consequences for me. When he asked again while his father was out of town for a month, he was told: “She doesn’t deserve it.” Instead, he was forced to stay with a grandmother who abused, endangered, and neglected him, or at the house of a man Luka himself calls “Creepy Jay.” When I brought this evidence to court, it was dismissed as “hearsay” — and I was punished with even less time. We were even forbidden from speaking Czech together, cutting Luka off from his language and culture.

He even used his friend Elizabeth Valadez to file a false harassment report against me. I was arrested less than 2 hours after filing a motion to be heard the next day, in which I was proving all the ways this man was dangerous to both Luka and myself. That case was later dismissed after evidence proved the report was fabricated.

In spring 2025, Trent requested that I be supervised with Luka, banned from his school, and forced into a third psychological evaluation — based on his false claim that I am “bipolar.” He fuels this narrative to paint me as “erratic” and “dangerous” (again - despite evidence proving otherwise) so he can chip away at our time together. When this was denied, he filed again as an emergency order — without me present. When that was dropped at an evidentiary hearing, he set yet another hearing six days later. Travis County judges granted him six hearings in a row on the same demand, wasting taxpayer money while separating me further from my already deteriorating boy. At all of these hearings, Trent was paying Luka’s “child therapist” Dianne Arnett $1,500 per testimony to say that the reason Luka did not love his abuser father was because I was “alienating him” - even though I had seen Luka 47 times that year. 

When Trent succeeded in getting me banned from leaving Texas and then took away my summer month with Luka, I filed my own emergency order asking to travel home to Czech Republic — as we did every year. I was denied a hearing.

So in July 2025, Luka and I fled to the Czech Republic.

I believed our country would protect us under the Hague “grave risk” exception. The Hague hearing was August 15, 2025. Luka bravely told a state psychologist that one of his three wishes was for his father to disappear, and he testified in court against him. But Trent and the guardian ad litem — who had been manipulating the process from the start and blocking Czech child protective services (OSPOD) from intervening — asked that Luka’s testimony be stricken, and the judge agreed. Luka’s voice was silenced. The court ordered his return to the U.S. - not because it was safe, but simply because “America is a democracy and not at war.” I was told I would go to prison (because Trent had obtained warrants against me for “kidnapping”) as a result of my own actions — as though seeking protection for my child was a crime.

We fled again, this time to South Africa - to seek asylum. Trent escalated further: he hired trackers to find my phone. Our guesthouse received anonymous threats. Men arrived claiming to be police and U.S. Embassy staff — one was only a traffic warden. The next day, eight men in four cars blocked our exits. Another man checked in pretending to be Interpol, waving a Texas warrant and showing staff photos of us taken on the street. We were too afraid to leave for our asylum appointment — I did not know if they meant to intimidate, abduct, or even kill us.

The following day South African police stormed our apartment with an ex parte order Trent had obtained without me present. After Interpol refused to escalate his attempts to criminalize me, he falsely reported Luka as a “missing child” — despite knowing our exact location. I warned police that Trent was dangerous and explained how he had tracked us. Luka clung to me, sobbing that he was afraid of his father and what he would do to him, but was told to “be brave” and was ripped from my arms and handed to the very man we had fled.

Trent then filed another Hague petition in South Africa, claiming the FBI and State Department helped him track us. And because police had seized our passports, I could not complete our asylum registration - which would have protected us from Hague proceedings and from refoulement (being forced back to the country where we faced harm).

This campaign of lies and intimidation is destroying the life of a nine-year-old boy. Luka’s health has deteriorated, his stability has been shattered, and he is being forced into the custody of people who endanger him. If nothing changes, he faces lasting psychological harm and the permanent loss of his culture, language, and safe bond with his mother — while his abuser gains more power through court manipulation.

WHY ACT NOW?

The next hearings are imminent. Every day of delay deepens Luka’s trauma and strengthens the false narrative against me. Public pressure can compel Czech and international authorities to intervene before it is too late.

We, the undersigned, say enough. No child should be weaponized through corruption and lies. No parent should be hunted across continents for protecting their child.

👉 More information, documentation, and updates: @terezakacerova