WAILUKU >> A woman who claimed she fled from Maui to Costa Rica with her two daughters because her former husband had sexually abused them was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail. Maui mom sent to jail
for custody violationBy Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.comMary Lou French, convicted of two counts of custodial interference, was also fined $5,000, ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and placed on five years' probation.
French, who had joint custody of the children with her husband after a 1997 divorce, fled with her daughters to Costa Rica in 1999 and was arrested in Panama while trying to flee to Bangkok in April 2000.
Maui Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza did not accept the 10-year prison term recommendation made by Deputy Prosecutor Carson Tani.
Tani said French deserved 10 years in prison because of the extraordinary circumstances, including the way French took the law into her own hands by fleeing to Costa Rica.
French said she would have tried harder to resolve the problem in the courts, if she had to do it over again.
"I'm so sorry I didn't keep trying again and again and again, but I haven't ever committed a crime before, and I have no intention of ever doing it in the future," she said.
"I just beg the court, don't send me to prison."
French said that for more than eight months after her arrest, she was not allowed any contact with her daughters, who were put into her husband's care in California.
She said that for more than a year, she has had "very minimal contact" with her daughters, with supervised visits a few hours a week.
"That's been devastating for the girls and I," she said.
French's attorney, David Bettencourt, said he had expected Cardoza to sentence her to 60 days. "It was a hard case. The judge had some hard decisions to make," he said.
Bettencourt said many people have been guilty of custodial interference, but the prosecutor did not choose to bring them to trial.
The daughters, ages 6 and 7, have been living with her former husband, James French, who has remarried.