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Amitkumar Kanubhai Patel, 38, a naturalized U.S. citizen who previously lived in Edison, fled with the child in July 2017 before settling in Vadodara, federal authorities said.
He was captured in England three years later.
Patel had lived with the child’s mother from August 2015 through July 2017. Their son was born in November 2016.
According to her, Patel wanted to take the boy to India to introduce him to his parents and obtain DNA testing that he said was necessary to claim family-owned property there.
The child was four months old when Patel tried and failed to obtain a visa for him, federal authorities said.
Patel then told the mother that he needed sole custody in order to obtain one, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
Patel directed her to tell a judge that they had a “mutual understanding” about custody and that she couldn’t care for the boy because she was unemployed, he said.
The majority of a subsequent hearing in family court was conducted in English with no translator even though the mother didn't speak the language well, the U.S. attorney said..
“The mother answered the court’s questions as she had been instructed by Patel,” Sellinger said. “She was not represented by an attorney.”
Patel was granted sole legal custody, then immediately obtained visas for himself and the boy, the U.S. attorney said.
They then left on July 26, 2017 for what Patel told the child’s mother would be a two-week trip, he said.
The mother said she sent several messages to Patel trying to confirm that they’d arrived safely but “got no response for several days,” Sellinger said. “Patel eventually called the mother and said he was never bringing the child back to the United States."
This time, the mother got a lawyer. A Superior Court judge subsequently issued an order on Oct. 16, 2018 that Patel immediately return the boy to the U.S.
He didn’t.
Patel and the child flew from India to the United Kingdom in October 2020. Authorities there seized him when he arrived on a provisional arrest request submitted by the United States, Sellinger said.
A London court subsequently ruled that was in the best interests of the child to be returned to his paternal grandparents in India. Patel, meanwhile, was extradited to the United States to stand trial.
He has remained in federal custody ever since.
Patel was convicted of obstructing the parental rights of his child’s mother by kidnapping the child and failing to return the child to the United States when ordered to do so following a five-day trial in federal court in Camden, Sellinger said.
U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb scheduled sentencing for Nov. 22, he said.
Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI with the investigation leading to the conviction, secured by Deputy U.S. Attorney Andrew Carey and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason M. Richardson of his Criminal Division in Camden.
He also thanked members of the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) for their assistance in the extradition.
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