County officials in international custody battle over 3-year-old
One Sunday evening, a 3-year-old girl disappeared from her North Las Vegas foster home and reappeared in Mexico the next morning.
Three months later, the police investigation has stalled, and Carla Espinosa-Alvarez, a U.S. citizen and legal ward of Clark County, is caught in the middle of an international custody battle that is moving at a snail’s pace.
“It’s an open case, but there’s no effort being put forth right now,” North Las Vegas police Sgt. Tim Bedwell said. “We’re at a standstill.”
How Carla even arrived in Mexico remains a mystery to police, with conflicting stories yet to be sorted out.
Marisol Losoya, Carla’s foster mother, told police a masked couple tricked their way into her home on May 8, held her at gunpoint and snatched the girl.
But Maria Espinosa-Alvarez, Carla’s biological mother, told Mexican authorities the kidnapping story had been a hoax, that she had paid Losoya to bring Carla across the border.
Bedwell said detectives have been unable to interview Espinosa-Alvarez in Mexico.
“We’d still like to speak to the mother to get her side of the story,” Bedwell said. “We’re looking at something here that might not even be an outright kidnapping, I don’t think. It could be more of a custodial issue.”
The custody dispute first arose after Espinosa-Alvarez left her daughter with friends in Las Vegas last year and went to Mexico to attend to some personal affairs. When she tried to return to Las Vegas, she was denied entry into the country. It’s unclear whether she had been living in the United States illegally.
Clark County Department of Family Services took Carla from the mother’s friends in October because they were not legal guardians. No charges were filed against Espinosa-Alvarez or the friends, and the girl was placed in foster care.
Christine Skorupski, a Family Services spokeswoman, said authorities had been working toward returning Carla to her mother in Mexico before the May incident.
But Carla’s disappearance was a breach of trust, she said.
“You step back from any progress being made,” Skorupski said.
Clark County had requested the girl be returned, but that did not happen. The case then became an international law matter, she said.
There is the possibility that Clark County could transfer monitoring duties to the Mexican government, while keeping oversight within their jurisdiction. That commonly occurs when Clark County places a child with a family in another state, such as California, she said.
“We still have the legal wardship and obligation to the child, so the case is in our core system,” Skorupski said. “I don’t know how that would be handled on an international level. Comparing our courts to theirs is like comparing apples and pineapples.”
Mary Brown, a deputy district attorney in the juvenile division, said she could only speak in general terms because of privacy laws.
In a typical international child abduction case, the most common practice is to file a Hague application. The Hague Convention is an international treaty that governs, among other things, child abductions. Both the United States and Mexico have signed the treaty.
“That is a statement that a child’s been kidnapped and a requested return of the child,” Brown said.
But a case like Carla’s often does not generate enthusiasm within agencies, she said. Also, the application was intended for disputes between parents, not between a government agency and a parent.
Mexico is the least compliant country involving child abduction disputes with the United States, according to a 2010 State Department report.
There was no timetable for resolving this case.
But one question looms: Why would Clark County fight Mexico for custody of a girl who will be placed back into foster care if she returns to Las Vegas?
Brown said safety was the concern.
“If the child was with the mom, and safe, what do we care?” she asked. “In general, we would not pursue it (a case) otherwise.”
Skorupski agreed.
If safety was not an issue, “we would have returned her to her mother a long time ago,” she said.
Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.
