Gary WhiteLakeland Ledger
The worst part for Wayne Emerson is not merely that he has missed more than one-quarter of his young son’s life.
The bleakest fact is this: Emerson believes that his son has been led to believe he is dead.
Emerson, a former Lakeland resident, has been desperately trying to regain contact with his son, Noah, whom he has not seen since February 2022. Emerson accuses his ex-wife of kidnapping the boy, now 7, during a family visit to her native Brazil.
Despite hiring lawyers and pleading his case to state and federal agencies and elected officials, Emerson said he is no more hopeful than he was when The Ledger first reported on his plight more than a year ago.
“I've reached out to any and all federal agencies — totally open with them, do your investigation on me,” Emerson said. “I've got nothing to hide, I'm a victim here, and so is my son. And nothing has happened. And now I'm at a point, I’m under so much stress and duress, sometimes it's hard for me just to get up in the morning and function, let alone tackle a whole ‘nother legal facet that's coming at me or rehire another attorney.”
Emerson says that his ex-wife, Debora Lopes Martinelli, persuaded him to take a family vacation to Brazil in December 2021 and then engineered legal efforts to permanently separate him from his son. The scheme involved a divorce and a false claim of assault, which yielded a court injunction, he said.
Emerson, 54, is convinced that his ex-mother-in-law, a former prosecutor, has influenced officials in Brazil to prevent him from seeing Noah. His ex-wife and her mother ordered Emerson from the latter’s home on Feb. 15, 2022, and then accused him of assaulting her.
Emerson spent nine hours in jail but was not arrested. He said that video he shot with his phone during the final encounter with his ex-wife proved that he never struck her.
Nevertheless, a judge issued a restraining order based on the accusation alone, citing a Brazilian law adopted in 2006. Emerson remained in Brazil another seven months before returning to Florida.
Pointing to global treaty
Since then, Emerson said he has spent tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers in Brazil and Florida, without any positive effect. He suspects that his former lawyer in Brazil was colluding with his former mother-in-law to scuttle his efforts of regaining access to Noah.
Emerson had drawn hope from learning about the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a treaty signed by more than 100 countries, including the United States and Brazil. The agreement, enacted in 1980, is intended to prevent one parent from severing the other’s parental rights by taking the child to another country.
Under the treaty, child custody arrangements that existed before an alleged wrongful removal or retention should continue. An allegedly abducted child should be returned to their country of habitual residence until any custody questions are resolved there, the agreement states.
Guidance from the State Department says that any delay in filing a Hague Convention claim can harm the chances of success. Emerson said that he wrote to the State Department to ask about the process a month after his ex-wife banished him from her mother’s home.
Emerson said that his ex-wife has taken further steps to ensure he never sees Noah again, filing a child-abuse complaint against him based on two incidents in which the boy injured his elbow while in the United States. Emerson said one case of “nursemaid’s elbow” occurred when he lifted Noah by the arm at a mall in Brandon.
The boy was treated at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center, and no employees there found his injury suspicious, Emerson said. Lopes Martinelli never reported Emerson to police or the Florida Department of Children and Families at the time of Noah’s injury, he said. There are no criminal records for Emerson in Polk County.
Emerson said that Brazilian authorities have no jurisdiction to investigate the allegations but are using the claims as a pretense to keep him from seeing Noah.
A psychologist appointed by a Brazilian court indicated that Noah thinks his father is dead, Emerson said.
“Noah told the court psychologist that ‘My daddy's in heaven,’” he said.
The psychologist would not recommend allowing him to see his son, Emerson said.
“I feel like I'm going up against blatant corruption in Brazil, involving my mother-in-law, and even my first Brazilian attorney told me that,” Emerson said. “I feel like I'm up against a brick wall. I feel like they use legal maneuver after legal maneuver to frustrate me to financially break me and ultimately destroy my health. I think they're using my son as a pawn.”
Emerson said that his former lawyer in Brazil did not keep him informed about the case and ignored many of his requests. He said the lawyer withdrew from his case and waited months to inform him. He said he recently asked another lawyer in Brazil to take over his case.
Emerson also hired Patricia M. Lee, an Orlando lawyer who has handled cases involving the Hague Convention since 1992. Lee, who is not licensed in Brazil, assisted Emerson in filing for divorce in Florida so that he could address issues of custody and timesharing, she said by email. Emerson also tried to obtain a declaration of wrongfulness, a court order offering findings to prove that the “left behind parent” has parental rights to the child and that the child should be returned to the state of habitual residence.
Such an order can help, but Emerson still needs to obtain a court order in Brazil directing Noah’s return under provisions of the Hague Convention treaty, Lee said. Under the treaty, signatory countries must process petitions within six weeks and are precluded from ruling on issues of custody until the Hague matters are resolved, Lee said.
“However, in Wayne’s case, the Brazilian courts have not acted promptly at all, and have issued various rulings, the subject matter over which to my understanding, they have no jurisdiction,” Lee wrote.
She cited protective orders based on unverified allegations of abuse and a court directive for Emerson to pay financial support to Lopes Martinelli.
The State Department produces annual reports on countries’ adherence to the Hague Convention. The agency has cited Brazil each year since 2006 for “demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance.”
“Specifically, the Brazilian judicial authorities failed to regularly implement and comply with the provisions of the Convention,” the recently published 2024 report states. “As a result of this failure, 43 percent of requests for the return of abducted children under the Convention remained unresolved for more than 12 months.”
Cases involving the Hague Convention in Brazil remained unresolved for an average of two years and four months, the report says.
Emerson can clearly prove his case under the Hague Convention rules, Lee said, but his ex-wife has sought one of the few defenses available, Lee said, the “grave risk of harm” argument. Emerson has many professional witnesses to rebuff her allegations, she said.
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“So in my view, it seems that the Brazilian courts are not complying with their obligations under the Hague Convention, just as they have not done in just about every Hague Case ever brought in that country,” Lee said.
Running out of money
Emerson said that he believes his former lawyer in Brazil is part of the problem. The Ledger was unable to reach the lawyer.
Emerson said he was paying the Brazilian lawyer $2,000 a month and has now accumulated legal bills of tens of thousands of dollars, while also losing considerable income. He said he and his siblings sold a house they co-owned in Lakeland, displacing him but also providing some additional funds, which he has since spent. Emerson has been living with an adult son in Riverview for more than a year.
Emerson, co-owner of a digital marketing company, said his ability to work has suffered because of his continuing stress. His blood pressure has “skyrocketed” and he worries that he might have a heart attack or a stroke.
“There's some days I just felt paralyzed," he said. "My mood is downtrodden. I'm depressed. I can't do anything.”
When reached by email last year, Lopes Martinelli wrote that a judge had ordered secrecy for all parties because the case involves a minor. She said that Emerson had breached that secrecy by sharing confidential information with a reporter.
“The only thing my attorney authorized me to say is that Mr. Wayne Emerson is lying to you and misleading you,” Lopes Martinelli wrote in May 2023. She did not respond to an email sent Thursday.
Emerson traveled to Brazil in January, intending to stay for as long as six months to pursue his legal options. He said he returned after 76 days, partly because he lost his phone and was unable to make the calls needed for his marketing job.
Emerson has asked the State Department to assist him through its International Parental Child Abduction program. Last year, a spokesperson for the State Department confirmed to The Ledger that the agency had been in touch with Emerson.
The spokesperson said by email last week that the agency had no updates to share on Emerson’s case.
Desperate for help, Emerson said he has contacted the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, a local FBI bureau and the offices of Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Brandon. He said that he has either received no response or been told that elected officials cannot help him because he has lawyers pursuing his case.
A spokesperson for Lee said her office had been communicating with Emerson. Lee does not publicly discuss constituent casework matters, the spokesperson said.
Emerson now thinks his only hope may be to find a lawyer or legal organization willing to advocate for him at no charge.
“I need somebody to step in and get in the middle of this thing,” Emerson said.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
