Chapter Seven

The Failed Courtcase

    At last it was Monday, April 20, the children’s court case. Brian and his mother were coached again by Tatyana about NOT mentioning to the judge that they had received videos and medicals on the children before they left for Russia. Brian clearly saw “Beacon House” written all over the documents that Tatyana was going to hand the judge.

    The other unaccredited Amrex agency family was also told to say nothing about their adoption agency. The Beacon House family was in the clear.

    In the courtroom with them were the orphanage director, Tatyana, Mr. Burov the judge, the Department of Education representative Olga Mull, a social worker and a prosecutor.

    Ludmilla the orphanage director had the opportunity to speak first. She told the court about witnessing Brian with Oleg and Elena. 

    Brian, she said, had been genuinely loving and caring towards them and was impressed by his love. She recommended the ten days be waived so the children could go home with Brian as soon as possible.

    The next to speak on Brian’s behalf was Tatyana herself.  She explained to the judge Alysha’s absence and the circumstances surrounding her injury. Or so Brian thought. 

    He felt the hearing was going well.  He trusted that Tatyana was accurately translating all that he was saying to the judge.

    It came time for Mr. Burov to ask Brian questions. When he answered them, Mr. Burov smiled and nodded approvingly at his answers.

    Brian learned in court that Oleg had been turned down seven times for adoption by Americans. Seven times. How many times and to how many different agencies had Amrex filtered Oleg’s referral?

    He also learned of Elena’s biological mother and their mistreatment by her.

    But the most startling revelation was that a single Russian woman, from an area roughly 3 hours outside of Amur, had also requested to see the children. She had lost a son to Leukemia and had been captivated by Oleg’s resemblance to her late son. However, upon seeing how deformed Oleg appeared, her family felt that she could not handle his needs and declined his placement for he was “a cripple.”

    Things were looking up for the Towells, Oleg and Elena at that point. Brian was surprised the questions that the judge was asking him were so simple. He had been forewarned by others that the questions would be more difficult and the judge more demanding.

    What had not been anticipated, was how the prosecutor would proceed to demolish their case. She was the wasp in the ointment that was going to sting until she ripped their hearts out.

    She was out for blood. She looked at the Towells’ documents carefully and summarily tore their case to shreds. She used the dates on Alysha’s medical documents and compared them with their Petition to Adopt forms.  

    She twisted it to make it appear that Alysha, after having her knee crushed by a spooked mare, had changed her mind about the adoption. She made the allegation that Brian filed singly so that he could travel without Alysha’s consent.

    And then the worst allegation of all, the story that got around to other parents coming to Amur to adopt. The prosecutor began to make their insurance coverage and military housing look questionable. 

    She alleged that their circumstances, living on the base, reflected poorly on their finances due to the fact it appeared that the United States government provided their home, insurance and paycheck. 

    The deadly blow was struck.  Since they were living on base, under the auspices of the United States government, they obviously didn’t have enough income to provide for a family in an emergency.  She based this on one fact: the Towells didn’t own their own home, and hence, did not have equity in property.

    She insinuated to Mr. Burov she was the “head prosecutor” for the region, and if the he approved this adoption, that she would appeal the decision to Moscow. Under what grounds, she did not elaborate.

    The Prosecutor twisted the knife deeper: she reminded the judge, Tatyana, Brian and the orphanage director that no one had ever turned over a denial for adoption in Moscow.

    As you will see, the prosecutor was right about that.

    Brian and Alysha Towell’s adoption of Oleg and Elena was summarily denied by the judge.

    It is imperative that we add here Tatyana, in her capacity as the court’s translator and Amrex’s facilitator, did not translate Brian Towell’s exact words in response to the prosecutor’s allegations. 

    In fact, she was nowhere close. She did not tell the court why Alysha wasn’t there or that her knee had been crushed or even bother to show the letters from Alysha’s doctors stating she was in okay condition to mother these children. 

    In short, Tatyana blatantly misrepresented the Towell’s case. And the evidence would be in the official transcript of the court proceedings that the Towell’s obtained later on.

    Brian was physically devastated, nearly breaking down in sobs as he left the courtroom. He had never, ever expected this to occur.  

    He was unaware of Tatyana’s duplicity over the matter. Nobody had ever told him and his wife that an adoption could be denied.

    Before he had left Oleg and Elena the previous afternoon, he had promised them that he would be back to get them. The faces of Oleg and Elena stayed with them; what was their reaction going to be when the other two couples came for their children, and the man they had begun to call “papa” didn’t?

    How does one do that to children?  Oleg was old enough to probably understand that yet again he had been abandoned by a parent.

    Tatyana Vladimirovna Dmitriyeva didn’t know what to do herself and attempted to cover her butt. This was her first denial of an adoption in Amur.

    She had already received the Towell’s money, through Amrex, so if Brian returned without Oleg and Elena, that was no skin off her nose.  A conservative guess is that Tatyana/Amrex placed 60 children from Amur in 2001. She and another woman named Svetlana were Amrex’s facilitation team on the ground in Amur and were the ones keeping Amrex’s monopoly rolling.

    However, this is not what Brian wanted to do.  He hadn’t traveled three-quarters around the world for his son and daughter to be told chose some others like they were some sort of interchangeable commodity. These were his children in his heart.

    Brian was not informed of his right to appeal, nor was he shown the final court decree then, which by Russian law, the parents must sign. 

    After the court case he and his mother were in tears thinking of the conditions that the children were living in, asked Ms. Dmitriyeva several times about legal counsel to appeal the judge’s decision nonetheless.

    Ms. Dmitriyeva squashed that thought.  She informed them, in her capacity as an Amrex facilitator, court translator and school teacher, that she did not trust any lawyers or legal counsel in her own region. “They are corrupt and useless people” she told them.

    Brian literally begged Ms. Dmitriyeva to be taken back to the orphanage, to tell Oleg and Elena what had happened, that he would be back to come and get them.  She denied his request and told him that it was “against the law” to return and see the children.  She had the other two families and their children to chauffer.

    This was a blatant lie; Alysha later found out that orphanages in Russia are like the local library — they are public places where anybody could walk into! 

    Later that afternoon, after Ms. Dmitriyeva and the last family were still at the court house, Brian, on his own initiative, with no knowledge of the Russian language, was able to hire a local cab to ferry him to Dom Rebyonok of the Amurskaya Oblast.

    Once at the front door he knocked and the heavy door was opened by an employee who recognized him. This employee, unbeknownst to him at the time, was Tatyana’s “insider” at the orphanage. 

    She stood guard at the front entry sitting at a desk. She understood a bit of English and he made himself understood, but all to no avail. She would not let him in to see Oleg or Elena. Ludmilla Ivanova was still at the local court so she could not be contacted to help Brian see Oleg and Elena once last time.

    And then, as he was about to leave, in came Tatyana, escorting the last family from their successful court hearing. Brian had also brought with him some material donations, and Tatyana, upon seeing these items in his arms, stated “I will take your gifts.  You go back to the hotel in the car — you are not allowed to be here.”

    Brian was escorted back to the car and driven the lonely miles back to his hotel.

    The next hardest thing he would have to do was tell Alysha on the telephone when she called the hotel what had happened. And that was the worst day of her life as she later told me.

    Upon hearing that Brian had been denied in court, she called Medina at 8:00 am and managed to speak directly to Wendy. Wendy the whiz then had Denise call her at home.

    Alysha begged Denise to help with Elena and Oleg’s appeal. How was it done? Who could they call? Had anybody ever filed an appeal before?

    Denise said that she would call “the reps.” She called Alysha back in an hour and claimed she had called “the reps” and asked how to proceed.  

    She did not tell Alysha if she had called “the reps” in Moscow, Alpharetta or Blagoveshchensk. Denise claimed “the reps” would need the following documents for an appeal: 1) a new proof of permanent home occupancy, 2) financial proof from an accountant that the loan from Alysha’s parents wasn’t a loan but a gift, 3) proof the money was in the bank, 4) statement from her parents that the money was indeed a gift and 5) verification from Brian’s employer (i.e., the military) that he would be receiving a raise the next month.

    Oh, and it all had to be apostilled and sent to Ohio the next day.

    God alone only knows how she did it, but Alysha got cracking on the above. By 3 p.m. she states every document listed above was notarized, certified and apostilled and sent word to Denise that the paperwork was done and asked where to send it.

    This astounding feat was met with shock. Denise sent Alysha Amrex’s Federal Express number to have the documents overnighted to a Svetlana Zhakharova in Moscow at an apartment on "Stirrup Lane".  This Svetlana Zakharova, was she Marina's Zakharova's sister? 

    There is a Galina Constintanova Bondarenko who is allegedly Marina Zakharova Amrex and Genesis director's mother.  She has a business card stating she is a representative of Beacon House Adoption Services, Inc.

    Denise promised Alysha that the documents would be in Blagoveshchensk the next day and that perhaps the judge would review their case right then.

    The second day Denise and Alysha had another conversation.  Denise clearly stated to Alysha that the judge (she didn’t name him) had reviewed her documents and had told “the rep” that he wouldn’t change his mind.  However, if they wanted to take it further, Brian must leave with the other families to sort things out on the American end.

    The above was a Denise L. Hubbard STORY and LIE. Since Alysha had the tracking number of the Fed Ex package, she realized that her paperwork, once it hit Moscow, would take 11 days to reach Blagoveshchensk. The judge had never received any of it and therefore, hadn’t reviewed anything.

    Before they boarded the plane to Krasnoyarsk on the day they left, Brian told Ms. Dmitriyeva that he would be back. 

    Ms. Dmitriyeva thought differently. She told him to go back to America and chose another child who was off the database. “No, you will go somewhere else. Go to Primorski Krai [the Vladivostok area]” she said. “We have good connections there.”

    Brian and his mother therefore flew back to Moscow with the two newly-formed families whose court cases had gone “without a hitch” and whose ten days had been waived by the judge. 

    These two families were stunned and saddened that Brian had lost the case. They had both felt that Brian was “the best parent” out of all of them and to have been denied his children was a travesty.

    Their children who had only days before lived with Oleg and Elena, now had loving parents.  It was difficult for Brian and Mrs. Towell to see the families joy at finally having their children, while their own joy had been denied. 

    Through their sorrow, they helped the other new parents with their children, but the image that wouldn’t leave Brian’s mind was Oleg standing watching the other children being removed to go home to the U.S.

    Never again would Brian Towell see Oleg and Elena.

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