A Michigan couple are accused of abandoning their adopted Haitian child at a Jamaican boarding school that was closed due to allegations of abuse, leaving the child alone in a foreign country for months.
Mark and Spring Goldman enrolled their 17-year-old adopted son, Elijah, in the American-owned Atlantis Leadership Academy on the island nation after the academy accused Elijah of frequently misbehaving, looking at pornography and running away from home. Detroit Free Press.
But the boarding school was forced to close in March after authorities found that staff had beaten and abused children in its care.
Five school employees were charged with child abuse and assault. According to NBC News:.
His worried parents rushed to collect their children, but Elijah's parents, who adopted him when he was 10, never arrived and the boy was left stranded for eight months.
“I'm grateful to them for bringing me to the United States, but they abandoned me,” Elijah told DFP.
“I am staying strong, but it hurts.”
According to the outlet, he had been living in a group home in Jamaica until authorities put him on a plane and flew him to Florida on September 3. There, his adoptive parents ordered an unidentified man who had taken him to school in Jamaica against his will to pick him up and take him to Utah.
But Elijah refused to go with the man, so Florida Child Protective Services returned him to his adopted home of Traverse City, Michigan, about four hours north of Detroit.
He's been living in a hotel room since then, and his adoptive parents have taken all of his electronic devices away from him and forbidden him from going out or going out.
In addition to receiving an outpouring of support from the Traverse City community, Elijah's case caught the attention of socialite Paris Hilton, who has been a vocal supporter of the boy and critic of religious boarding schools.
The abandoned boy and his lawyer, New York City-based children's rights attorney Dawn Post, are set to face off against Mark and Spring Goldman in a Traverse City courtroom on Wednesday to decide the boy's future.
Luckily, the media reports, the boy's story moved him to find a kind-hearted foster parent who agreed to take him in. ReportedMark and Spring Goldman did not object.
“That's the right thing to do,” a woman who identified herself as “Terri” told the outlet while holding the boy.
