Runaway mom in court
over passport

Federal prosecutors in Honolulu are asking that a former Texas woman who fraudulently obtained a passport for her minor son and fled with him to Thailand be held without bail.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had issued a lookout for her 6-year-old son.

Dorothy Toon Offermann, 40, made her first court appearance in U.S. District Court yesterday to face a charge of making false statements in a passport application, a felony. A detention hearing is set for Friday.

According to court documents, Offermann applied for a passport at the Honolulu Passport Office on March 4 for herself and her son.

Both parents are required to be present and to sign the application for a minor child. There are exceptions, however, and in lieu of the other parent's sworn statement, the applicant may include a statement of special circumstances explaining why the other parent could not be present and could not give written consent.

Offermann, who was in a custody dispute with the boy's father, allegedly wrote that she could not locate the boy's father and swore that everything on the application was true.

Offermann's ex-husband contacted the U.S. Department of State on May 13 after learning his ex-wife and son were missing. He told authorities that he had been in contact with his ex-wife up to when she disappeared.

He said he suspected his ex-wife and her current husband planned to move to Hawaii because they were "tired of the custody matter."

Just eight days after a federal magistrate here signed a search warrant on May 18, the ex-husband managed to locate her and their son in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and, with the help of the U.S Department of State Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, they were returned to the United States.

Offermann surrendered to authorities in the Eastern District of New York on May 26 and has been in custody since. The case is in U.S. District Court in Honolulu because the offense allegedly occurred here.