One morning in June, on the first page of our city's newspaper we discovered a sad story. A Yugoslavian ship, KAPETAN MARTINOVIC, was blocked in the harbor due to sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia by the United Nations. Fifteen sailors, however, without food or money, were blocked on it too. My father's conscience was working: He had enough stories with the Yugoslavs; but here, humanitarian reasons prevailed. We went to see them. At first they were a little withdrawn, but later they told us their story: "We have food --- old cans of food, so old that when we open them, they whistle (the fermentation inside had built up so much that some even exploded on their own), milk that has an expiration date of a year ago -- all this, churches brought to us," they said, "and then, they video-tape us when they hand it over to us to better spread their propaganda." (There are many more things to say, but it is not our duty to dirty the honor of some inhumane Americans and shame them.) The sailors came and worked in our garden to thank us. They refused all help from us, for they told my father, "It is not you that should be helping us, but we should be helping you with your six children." They were real sailors, very proud of themselves. One of them got sick and we were able to get him admitted to a hospital. They were so happy that they no longer knew how to thank us. The help we provided to these sailors did not please the people of Charleston, nor several other Americans. It fell into the ears of the Yugoslavian Secret Service and they jumped to the opportunity. The crew began to change and we noticed that it was no longer just sailors. First mate BUDA went back home after two months, paying his own fare to give his report on us.
In this situation, we made it to December 1993. My mother took us out of school for one week before Christmas to go selling, so that we could have our Christmas too. We were unlucky: We got snowed-in in Georgia and sold nothing. This Christmas, not a single church came to our aid, and our Christmas was very poor. My father raised money from some of the doctors at MUSC and the sailors were able to have a Christmas meal. Just a little before, a new crew had come aboard the ship, including a young mechanic that started talking with the sky because he was going crazy on the ship. In January, my teachers looked for ways to pick on my clothes to degrade me in front of my classmates, despite the fact that we all wear uniforms. I received my grades: 70, 73, 76, and all of the teachers were full of delight and ecstasy. At the end of the first quarter, I was at the top of my class, but this time I would be near the last. Excuse given: the tests I missed during my one week of absence. First, there were hardly any tests given during my absence, because it was the week before exams. Second, my father had spoken to the director and he had said that due to the reasons for my absence I would not be failed for the work missed, my grades would be averaged as is. Even if I had been given zeroes, my grades should not have been that low. I exploded and I decided that I was sick of being discriminated and I quit school. My quitting school seemed to encourage other teachers, those that taught my brother and sisters. They discriminated even more to the point that one of them, Ms. Tracy, an art teacher, took Christine and Catherine out of their group of friends, pulled them into a corner, and said, "You both do not have the right to have any friends."
I obtained my driver's license and then learned to drive the van. I wanted to continue my studies, but the Charleston County Department of Education refused to authorize me to take the GED, that which is necessary for me to go to college. This trio of pimps, the C.I.A., Secret Service, and Immigration service, really does want us out in the street. For my mother, this was too much, and she broke down in March of 1994. She went into a serious depression, no longer knew what she was doing or saying. The police were in the house twice and so were Social Services. Her family got in the middle (supported by the French D.S.T.) and advised her all the contrary and how to better break up the family. "Go to social services and tell them that he (my father) is abusing the child (me). Go and tell them anything. It is your word against his. Leave the house. You know we are well-supported and we guarantee you that we will bring him back with hand-cuffs to France." My grand-father and uncle threatened that they would kill my father right away, that they were coming to America right away, that they would repatriate us back to France, and that they would raise us up the French way, not the American way. They said that Americans work "by the stick" and that they would do anything that they were asked to do.
My father tried to call his friend in France and learned some surprising news: Mr. Olmiccia, in October of 1989, was found dead in a hotel room. (Mr. Olmiccia was the owner of the hotel in which my father had the accident, President of the Association of Hotels of Marseilles and an active member of the Republican Party; and closer, he was my god-father.) We spoke to his brother and we asked his ex-wife if she thought his death natural, to which she responded, "No!"
Concerning my mother's behavior, we wrote a five-page letter and gave it along with a videotape, containing footage of her lying naked in bed with the children, to Social Services. The shock was so great that they wanted to hospitalize her immediately, but her family opposed all of this. A family friend found someone who would donate a car to us as a gift. Social Services made us go see a psychiatrist at 2:00 p.m., April 1. Mrs. Mary Mueller, after speaking with the children, told us that it was my mother that caused all of the problems, that she is very dangerous, and in all urgency she set up appointments for her to see a psychiatrist at MUSC that spoke French. Ms. Anzilotti from the Dept. of Child Protective Services (DCPS) wanted to hospitalize my mother for a month for treatment. The curious part was that my mother had to go see a doctor April 1, at 3:00 p.m. We were driving the van to take the children to Mrs. Mueller, and Mrs. Latorre of D.S.S. would be coming off from her vacation to drive my mother to her appointment. At 5:00 p.m., after the meeting with the psychiatrist, we met with the donor of the car and were given the papers to it. They just wanted us to have only one car so someone would have to take my mother to the doctor. My mother told us that all they did was prick her finger, get a drop of blood, and waited two and one-half hours for results. Other than that, she has an empty memory. My father was afraid that they had taken the opportunity to hypnotize her so that a crevice could be opened up in our family. Later, we spoke to Mrs. Latorre and she said that the doctor was not a hypnotist and she was only in the room for thirty minutes and it would take longer for that to be done. Of all this, we wrote letters to the FBI, White House, and Immigration Service. It remained just a vacant silence for they were very much in agreement, even the Yugoslavs.
I say Yugoslavs because the new captain of the ship that arrived came to put "bugs" in our house, all the while bringing $800 for us from our family. Of this, what was most curious, is that they asked us to send a videotape of the sailors to Yugoslavia. Their intentions were not very honest and we did not send it to them. Perhaps because the "bugs" in our house did not succeed, we were offered a solid wooden table with "bugs" in it. We rented a metal detector and it indicated the presence of metal. To verify that what we thought was right, we said several things in the house about the sailors. The men on the ship were perfectly aware of everything said and did not even try to hide their reactions. One day when we went to get bread for the ship, we picked up the new captain in our car and he brought someone along with him that we had never seen. The new captain continuously occupied my father so that my father would not have the occasion to speak with the other person. Several other events indicated to us that, without a doubt, there must have been some illegal people on the ship who thought of themselves as BIG BOSSES in America.
Captain Luka from the ship came frequently to our home to speak with my father, and he could not believe all of the things he had seen and heard during his stay in the U.S. He said that some Americans must have melted brains to act as they do to foreigners, all the while saying that he did meet a few good Americans. Capt. Luka was the only one left from the old crew. All the newcomers, my father nicknamed "police-heads." Our second main problem came from D.S.S. Mrs. Nancy Wieman, whose son works at the Pentagon. She called Mrs. Latorre and told her to change the AFDC check from my father's name to my mother's. This was done without even consulting my father or the family, even though Mrs. Wieman has no legal power at D.S.S. whatsoever. French businessman, Mr. Lepoutre, immediately took my mother's side and went all the way to the point of saying that he had offered my father money for his eye surgeries and my father had refused. Luckily enough, I was with my father when the appointment was scheduled and can testify that this is certainly not true. Mrs. Latorre told us that in our D.S.S. file, she had a list of people who wrote letters to her saying that they had wanted to help us, but that we had refused. She said that we were paranoid and abnormal. My mother's behavior became increasingly dangerous. There were days when she would have blank stares, stare at us, and when we would call her name, she would jump and return to normal. There were nights when we would lock ourselves in our rooms, and my father would sleep on the floor in the office, for she would act very strangely. Several times, we informed the DCPS office of this, yet nothing was done. We informed Ms. Anzilotti personally and by mail, and though she promised much, she did absolutely nothing. April and May went by, and still my mother had not been to see any doctor. We finally went to see our psychiatrist, Mrs. Mueller, and she exploded. "HOW COME?" she said. "I did everything I could. I enrolled her at the MUSC so that she could see a psychiatrist three times a week. Why did Ms. Anzilotti cancel everything? I am going to go and see what is wrong."
Mrs. Latorre proudly announced to me that she would be cutting my welfare benefits since I would not go work outside the home, even though she perfectly well knew that I was staying home helping my blind father and watching my ill mother. We wrote a letter to Mrs. Clinton and asked her for her support so that I could continue my studies, and as the month of June, still nothing. She sent a request to a Chicago association who would pay for my father to go through eye surgery, and they referred the file to a doctor in Philadelphia, who may be able to operate. We listened to some of the conversations of my mother and her family. They advised her to keep her calm, for the French Consulate would give her all the necessary papers to go to France and take the children with her (including the four American children). May 31, my mother exploded. She took my brother out of the car in downtown Charleston and left him on the side of the road. After 15 minutes of drama, she came back to get him. Fifteen minutes later, she made him get out on the bridge, where cars are going by at 60 miles an hour and ran him around the car. She was ready to leave without him, but he quickly got inside before she left. DCPS was made aware of this, yet once again, they did nothing. June 10, as we were coming home, Christine came to greet us sobbing. She showed me the bruises where my mother had beaten her. We took her to the hospital. The doctor analyzed the situation and she wanted DCPS to come right away, but then prolonged it to the next morning for it was 11:00 p.m. She wanted the police to go and pick my mother up, but we convinced her not to. June 2, the Yugoslavian ship left the harbor for Mobile, Alabama. Something was developing. My mother had purchased a camera with the money she received from her family in France and was taking portraits of the children to get passports. Someone was covering up for her so that she could leave to go to France with the children. My father and I took out loans so that the family could live. June 14, in the morning we had the impression that someone from her family was already here. We were tired and we packed our belongings, took the children, and left Charleston.
We entered North Carolina and started selling. The first five minutes -- $60.00, and then nothing, the selling had been blocked. While taking baths along the ocean, we went up towards Washington, D.C. We start selling in front of churches in Chesapeake -- $55.00 at the first one. The second and third that we went to, the priests let the people out the back door. We talked to one of the priests and he said he would make a contribution, but he will send it through the mail and we have to go back down to Charleston. We sold in front of stores and we arrived in Pennsylvania with neither food, nor money. A priest gave us food and money for gas, but another person introduced himself on behalf of the Lion's Club and wanted to fix everything so that we could go to the hospital. We saw through the set-up: DCPS wants to be on our back so that they can say that the children have no food and we are made to go back to Charleston. We went and visited with the sisters from our school, who during the summer are in Danville, Pennsylvania. They gave us a gift, which permitted us to outlive and finish this letter. My little sisters have confided in me what my mother's plans and projects were.
My mother had told Christine that she was planning to kill my father and I. The several times when my Dad or I slept in the office were worth it. Our doubts were justified. My sisters told me how my mother had hugged them. I am too ashamed and disgusted to say what she did to them, and that she uncovered me during my sleep to take pictures of me. I shiver when I think of this trio of pimps, the C.I.A., the Secret Service, Immigration service, who are trying to facilitate her way to get to France. I have no doubt that she has money with her. Yet, we are in debt over our heads. (Our total debts totaled over $14,000.00) We have switched from one telephone company to another, etc... We would have been able to pay them if we had followed our plans and gone selling when we were supposed to do so. For many years, we had concentrated on how to reimburse our debts, our credit report was always number one, but since June or July, we have not been able to pay back anything since our selling has been stopped. I am afraid to even think of going back home, for my mother's behavior is uncontrollable, extremely dangerous. Credit companies must have come by asking for money. Worst part of all is that I fear they have set up something for us in which they will find an excuse to separate all of the children from my father for a few days, in order to better break up the family.
My father had called his mother in Yugoslavia who was ready to come over here to help us out until my mother is cured. He told my grandmother: "I fear that the DCPS will find an excuse to take the children away from me while Renee is in the hospital and that during the foster care, they will change the ideas in the children's minds. If only you knew what we have been through for years, we for them are an ideal affair: foreign, blind, with five girls. They couldn't ask for anything better." My grandmother replied: "I read an article over here that detailed several cases where people in America would try to break up families that had a lot of children so that they could be left without protection and then be easily tuned into prostitution." I still have a letter from Mrs. Dickson when she got information from Congressman Arthur Ravenel's office, who had requested information from the immigration office. It states that my father and mother have to go to school to learn English, so that they can better find a job, and my father has to go to work at the association of the blind for $200-$300 a month (we can make that much in one day if they let us go selling). They hope that my sisters and I will ask for a baby-sitting job. I complained to Sister Mary Joseph that someone keeps blocking us from selling and trying to manipulate us. She didn't understand why we did not let ourselves be manipulated, for as she explained, "Why not let others think for you and let them help you, and if they stop you from selling it is to protect the children." To protect the children from what? From working? You want us to place them in front of a television to degenerate them? The children are happy to go selling: they go from shop to shop and see everything in them, change cities often, have several dollars worth of tips at the end of the day that we let them keep to buy what they wish and often they are given free ice cream and drinks for the honest work they do. At night, they get a big meal and a hotel room. The hurt is from the services that block them from making the money and it is that which obliges the children to sleep in the van, no tips, and a life much more difficult than if we had sold normally. The children then become disgusted with people who do all they can to render their lives difficult. They also become disgusted with the country in which they were born. We have well found out where your "help" will lead us --- my sisters and I in the streets -- We are free citizens and certainly plan to think freely about our future! My grandmother had an appointment with the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade on August 11, 1994 to see if they would authorize a VISA for her. I thought that it would be too late, we needed a rapid solution now. We have been in the U.S. for twelve years, during which my father has asked for political asylum and has always been avoided to interview. The story of his accident dates back to 18 years ago, he was judged 10 months later, and thus one should not have to look for any excuse that there is something important to see or find. There is also one truth: They are trying to get rid of us so that they can be sure that they have stifled their dirty mess. My father and his six children would like to stay in the U.S., but with one condition: THAT THIS TRIO OF PIMPS LEAVES US ALONE AND THAT I CAN FINISH MY EDUCATION AND THAT ALL OF US CAN FREELY CHOOSE THE JOB WE WANT TO HAVE NOW AND WHEN WE GET OLDER. We are neither mentally retarded, nor immature so that we need the U.S. Secret Service to be our dear Mommy or Daddy. If you hope that the Despotovic family will walk the streets to please these sexually obscene Americans, then in this case, I ask that the U.S. Ambassador find another country for us to live in for my Yugoslav father, my French sister and me, and for my American brother and three sisters. Please answer as quickly as possible, Despotovic Family The evening of Wednesday, July 14, 1994, a big 10-mm bolt of our clutch transmission broke. We spent the night on the shoulder of 1-95 because there are no rest areas coming in to New Jersey. In the morning of the 15th, my father got under the van, and after some hard work, we entered Trenton in the first gear. We bought some parts at a hardware store that evening, and with some bolts and pieces of wire, we were able to drive to ask for help from a priest. We stopped at the Martin House, and the priest accepted, seeing my father full of grease and us drenched with rain. We needed a motel, and the Red Cross accepted the charges asking us to call them back in the morning. The next day at noon, I called them back and a different lady answered and asked from where I was calling. I told her and she then told me to go to the City Hall and ask for a train ticket back home. She was very angry and took full right on us commanding me to leave the van there and take the train home. As soon as I got back to the van, three police cars arrived on the parking lot and entered the store. I sent my sister to ask for directions, and upon her return I was told that the policemen where looking for a young, short girl, with short blond hair who was looking for trouble. LOOKING FOR TROUBLE??? It is again WE that are looking for trouble because it is WE that do not want to return to Charleston. These cruel, cold-hearted monsters must surely have taken advantage of our absence to render this situation much more difficult for us. We returned to the priest and he gave us some money, which enabled us to flee to Pennsylvania. We left from city to city while trying to earn time. We spent the weekend at a lake, which made the children very happy. Every night we changed cities, yet people awaited for us outside our van and tried to find excuses to cause us trouble. Everyday we drove, we looked for our freedom, our right to live. Tomorrow is July 19, and we are preparing to go to the United Nations Headquarters. That morning, we were not far from the New York border in New Jersey when two big 10 mm hardened bolts from our starter broke down. The police came and prohibited us from repairing the van under pretext that they are not allowed to let us do that and prohibited us from videotaping them. While holding the starter in our hands and a few pieces of wire wrapped around the rest of the parts, we proceeded to the first gas station in first gear. All of the priests refused to help us, except one, who gave us a lot of help. After two days of difficult work, my father repaired the van and left for the United Nations. It was vacation time, we knew that it would not create a large effect, and that the whole affair will most likely be stifled. (We were not mistaken.) Despite our doubts, we deposited letters for President Boutros-Ghali, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and for the Director of the Commission for Human Rights. We then proceeded to Boston, Massachusetts. We tried to pass the time, for we were awaiting the U.S. Embassy's response to my grandmother's application for a VISA on August 11. In Connecticut, we asked some priests for some aid, and they all refused even gas and food. Yet, we still found some priests who studied us for a while and then gave us food or money to get us on our way. We suddenly noticed all at once that our front wheels were getting extremely hot. A mechanic from the Waterford BP gas station in Connecticut, said that the ball-bearings were, once again, full of metal shavings. He told us that the ball-bearings were ready to crack and that it would have been a total disaster if they had broken down. However, one thing that he cold not understand was how the shavings were there since there were no chips in any of the ball-bearings. His supervisor ordered that everything be put back, no greasing job done, and told us to leave. The next day, we asked the Nazarene Church in Croton, Connecticut if they could help us. The pastor accepted and a Mr. Jim (who we later learned was from the Navy) took us to buy food, wash clothes, and than paid for a night of motel rest. We tried to guess their trick: Tomorrow morning, social services would knock at our door. At 3:00 a.m., we entered Rhodes Island. The police stopped us on the road and wanted to know where we are going. Excuse for stopping us: driving too slowly --- 5 miles under the speed limit. They did quite some thinking and then let us leave. We then noticed that our front wheels were once again heating due to the brakes having been over-tightened.
Just before Providence, Rhodes Island, we stopped at several churches where we were refused all help and referred to Social Services. We called several television stations so that they would know what happened and they referred us to West Bay Community Services where we were given the minimal amount of help possible. They did however want to know our Social Security numbers and many other nit-picking types of information. We then entered Massachusetts using Route 1, where we are refused aid by some and helped by others. Friday, August 12, we made an appointment at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute for Research for August 17. We were told that my grandmother's application for a VISA had been approved and she would be coming the week after; however, this wonderful news did not seem to be in everyone's interest. August 13, our van broke down again: this would be the third time that two 10 mm hardened bolts break. We were in despair; we had no way to extract the little bit of bolt that was left in the hole. Sunday, once the stores had opened, we spent almost all of our money trying to fix it. We started working and the police arrived. From a neighboring house, a very nice American took our side. The man told the policeman that he was going to help us, so there was no need to worry. The man said that he would provide electricity, parking, and whatever else was necessary. The policeman just left dumbfounded. We managed to repair the van and several miles later, another policeman stopped us on pretext that our license plate lights are not working. We were beginning to get the feeling to be extremely careful, because they were going to stop us just before my grandmother arrived. The next day, we ask help from a church off of 1-84 in Connecticut. We tried to ask for help from several other churches, but neither the priests nor their secretary were in. A priest from a Catholic Church welcomed us very badly. A second called the convent in Charleston for references. We have lost our support, the priest, proud of himself, refused to help us. One hour later, we entered New York. For several days, we remained there and ate from the canned goods we had left. The evening of August 19, my grandmother arrived ---- we were saved. For hours, my father spoke to her and told her everything we had been through. She could not believe that people were capable of doing things as horrible as they had to us. Neither could I. While leaving New York, I thought of the Statue of Liberty --- LIBERTY OF WHAT??? LIBERTY FOR ONE TO TAKE THE LIBERTY OF ANOTHER??? I looked at it and wished that I could have just a sip of this cup of liberty that through history was supposed to be so famous. Maybe that was the key: it was history --- America had lost its grandeur to the pages of a history book. We had seen many people and priests, without character or personality, obeying to police orders. It is fortunate for me to have seen some who over-rode those orders and made their own judgments, or else I would have vomited. My grandmother showed me the letter that my mother's sister wrote to my grandparents in Yugoslavia. We have gotten used to the stories that my mother has invented; yet, I was still surprised. She said that we did not let her sleep in the house, so she had to sleep in the van all winter long. She had invented the many stories before to cause us trouble; however, we were beginning to believe that she might be losing her mind and thinking that these stories were actually true. My aunt threatened that we were wanted by the FBI, that an 18-year old file about my father's bomb is going to be retrialed and that they are going to deport us back to France. I knew that the French were specialists for creating set-ups, but to go hunting for trouble in an 18-year old file was just taking things too far. I do not know where this file will end, but all the proofs that my father has accumulated to prove his innocence since 1982, keep disappearing from our file. I am talking of a proof of November 1984, July 1985, November 1986, March 1987, etc... In the days to come, they will bring out new "proofs" that my father is a criminal and a terrorist. The proofs to prove the contrary of these accusations have also disappeared from our file. My father did not yet speak French when one day the police stopped him in the street asking him for his papers and found out that he was wanted by the Court of Aix, under the name, Michia Despotovic. Despite the fact that the witnesses did not recognize him, he was sentenced. While in jail, he was accused of robberies that occurred on August 17, 27, and 30, 1973. The stolen items: a bathing suit, a fishing cane, etc... The fact that he was in jail on those dates was ignored. The affair lasted a long time, it was tried to accuse him of several other things, but being even more ridiculous, those charges were dropped. There are many things to say and it is extremely long, but it is enough to say that he went to court five times. The third time his lawyer said that it was impossible to accuse someone for robberies done while one is in jail (because of the first set-up from July 30 - September 10, 1973). The whole audience laughed because they had never heard of such a thing. Despite all, he was still sentenced --- there is the equation of a criminal. Maybe the French can explain to you how one can be sentenced for an act committed while they are in jail. I have a certificate that lists the date he was in jail. If the French do not want to show it to you, I will. If you find out that we have said anything false about this matter, we agree to be deported right away. Later, my father found out that he was not the only one that had been victimized in this fashion, other Yugoslavs went through the same (Hodzic, Saban; Juraga, Boris; etc...) Later, the Honorable Judge Sinibaldi became the first judge of the military court in Marseilles. Soviet refugee Amarlik died in his sabotaged car while leaving Marseilles. It is never too good to know too much, and if my father received the bomb package, it was not for joking purposes. For some foreign interest, our file has been purposely sabotaged. Now, a cute little set-up in Charleston is awaiting us. We have already provided DCPS with a videotape of my naked mother with my naked sister and brother in the same bed, medical certificates of physical abuse to the children, and pictures of her naked while at the table. Despite this, one cancels psychiatric help for her and then does not get her the help she desperately needs. For months, they have cancelled appointments and waited for my father and I to leave home. My mother was advised to file for divorce and threw out new allegations in our absence, sufficient for D.S.S. to cut our welfare benefits. Charleston Housing was paying for our rent and we were told that this too was disconnected. Credit companies started to ask for payments on bills we owed, and they will probably take the opportunity to seize our woodworking machines. DCPS will be drowned by the parents' mutual allegations, and a judge will take over the case since it is now a divorce matter and will decide that the children be placed in foster homes until this case becomes clearer, leaving sufficient time for foster pimps to do their duty. What a beautiful job: 12 years later, we have accomplished taking away six children from a blind man. My grandmother, who is sick, came from Yugoslavia so that my mother can be hospitalized to be taken care of, my father operated, and us to be safe. She yearns to see our home, yet we do not dare tell her the truth concerning it. We do not know what to do, because your Secret Service has obscure plans in wanting to stifle this affair and send us back to Europe. Once more, MY FATHER AND THE SIX CHILDREN WANT TO REMAIN HERE. Once more, I would like to know if the White House is an accomplice with the monsters who have been given too much power of which they have abused. This part of the letter was given to the White House and Immigration Service, in August 1994. The FBI, advised in advance, refused to let us even enter the building so we could give them this letter. August 19, we picked up my grandmother at the airport in New York. The week after we were in Charleston. During the weekend, my mother told us all that she had made to live through during our absence. "Mrs. Nicole Ramsey told me that you were a terrible man, that I must divorce you, and took me everywhere so that I can file complaints against you. We called the police so that they can come and search the office, but since they found nothing to accuse you with, they left. Sister Mary Joseph told me you were a terrible man, that I must divorce you, she being a Catholic nun, and knows very well that divorce is not allowed, advised me that. Mrs. Latorre advised the same. Mrs. Anzilotti told me to write down everything that my husband did with the children and then send her the letters. My family told me that now was the time to get rid of you and told me to write letters everywhere so that they can put you in jail. So, you see what state I was in. They called me everyday to give me bad advice. When it was noticeable that I was at my wit's ends, Mrs. Ramsey tried to get me nervous: 'You are a woman alone in this house, for if someone knows, they can attack you and hurt you. You have a very nice and big library, a beautiful piano, a word processor, a facsimile machine, a camcorder, TV/VCR, a professional camera, and many other valuable things, such as your husband's big woodworking machines. I am telling you that someone may burglarize. You must be careful. Especially, you must be careful not to think of suicide.' And she constantly spoke about suicide. She asked me for your credit cards so that she could find out exactly what your debts were. August 1, Ms. Anzilotti told me, 'Mrs. Despotovic, find yourself a room, you will no longer need the house. During the week, I will get a court order so that when your husband gets back, I will take away your children.' I called my family in France and they laughed and said, 'Well, let them take them.' Your father from Yugoslavia encouraged me to hold on for just little more, for your mother was coming. When I said that to Ms. Anzilotti, she laughed and told me, 'Do not count on it. She will never, ever come, I guarantee it. You can sleep in peace.’ Only Seka and Andy Mance remained true friends to the end." The morning of August 29, Ms. Anzilotti, accompanied by a man, came to visit us at home. She was probably ready to take away the children, but when she found out that they were in school, it seemed to cool her down a little. My father asked her what she had done to help my mother, and asked her if she had received the letter that we had faxed her in June. "Yes, but two months late. The fax was received in the office, but they did not know whom to give it to.” I told her that the letter had her name on it and that she was the one that gave us the fax number to her office. She then turned her back towards my father and spoke only to my mother, talking about all of the things "that you said against your husband, I have the file here..." My mother interrupted her curtly and told her that all of the things that she had said were things that she had been pushed to say by Mrs. Ramsey, Sister Mary Joseph, Mrs. Latorre, and by herself, Ms. Anzilotti, and that everything was false. Ms. Anzilotti barely managed in holding back her anger. My mother brought out the file that we presented to the White House in 1990 and told Ms. Anzilotti that if she were not doing well mentally now, it is because of all of the things that were done to us in the past. Ms. Anzilotti said that the past did not interest her, but rather only the present. "Do you agree to the entire family seeing a psychiatrist?” We agreed. My mother had been awaiting treatment for six months -- treatment that never came. When psychiatrists scheduled appointments for my mother, Ms. Anzilotti cancelled them. American General Finance called our home for the debt we had with them and I told them that due to the family problem we were having, we were in no possibility of paying for the debt on time. The man was friendly and said he understood. He could see we had had an excellent credit report for years. He wondered what was going on, for a lady by the name of Nicole Ramsey called him and said that we had taken money out everywhere we could, had left the country, and would never come back. He just wanted us to know that there was someone in town calling around just to spread bad rumors. Since my father had a few offers for eye surgery in Chicago and my mother was getting from worse to worst, we put our belongings in storage, and we left for Chicago. Ms. Anzilotti was made aware that the children were no longer in school and quickly raced to discontinue our benefits with Charleston Housing. In September, my mother wrote a four page letter explaining all that she had been made to say, the bad advice she had been given, and the suggestions she had been pressured with, and denied and voided all accusations she had made against my father. She signed all four of the pages, and this was faxed to Ms. Shelly Anzilotti in Charleston. Thus, in September, we arrived in Chicago. Following addresses we had been given of people who were to help us with my father's eye surgeries, we went to see Mr. Milan Stokovich. He asked us to wait in the waiting room while he went to check on something (Mr. Stokovich owns a home for the elderly). We waited forty-five minutes after which a Mr. Desko Nikotic came and immediately began asking us detailed questions regarding everything from who we were, to why we were there, to whom we knew. It was very evident that he was an officer of some type. When he had finished his interrogation, the shadow, Mr. Milan Stokovich, who I could see had been waiting in the hallway came in the room. After Mr. Desko Nikotic gave him a nod, he said that we could spend the night at Srpska Bratska Pomoc (Serbian Brothers Help). We did, and the next day, we were placed in an apartment belonging to Mr. Mike Pavlovic (who is a realtor). It was a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor, and after we had moved in, we enrolled the children in school.
Chicago is big, there are many foreigners and with them, foreign stores and press. To our biggest surprise, we discovered very interesting articles in foreign magazines. We discovered truths about America that we never heard about here. A couple of years ago, on Radio France International, we heard that more than 2,500 children were being kid-napped from South America for the U.S. every year. However, we understood that the problem was becoming more serious when in a recent publication, we read an article that said that more than 4,000 children, who have been either kid-napped, or bought off in South America, enter America every year. The majority of them pass through Central America, and the C.I.A. covers their entrance into the United States. The majority of them are used either for prostitution, or for organ transplantation. Another article covered sexually abused and tortured children: a young child's body was thrown in a suitcase over Nevada. The stories were being covered-up, for they touched persons of the highest administration in America. We better understood why we had had so many troubles for the past 13 years so constantly. My mother had mentally exploded and was close to insanity. In October, after all the problems my mother had caused us in Charleston and then retracted, she once again began to set-up appointments with the Department of Children and Family Services in Chicago. She also had a contact person by the name of Suzanne in the neighborhood and other relations who began to cause us great problems. We feared that in Chicago we would have a bad set-up and that the children would be taken away. We tried to hurry for my father's eye surgeries, but Mr. Pavlovic, backed away --- Dr. Zecevic, the same. Mr. Stokovich made us promises and then backed off suddenly. In November, my father had an appointment at the University of Illinois. They performed several tests, except one ---the VER, the one that can prove that the optic nerve is alive and that he has a chance of regaining sight. Excuse, after excuse, the test was not performed. At 2:30 p.m., my grandmother, my father and we six children, spoke to Dr. Fischer. The children cried, but the doctor refused to perform surgery. I asked him to please try to perform surgery on my father, for I am sure that it would work. While Dr. Fischer was saying, "No," one of his assistants, discreetly said, "Yes." My mother lay in bed all day and did no work. My grandmother helped an 83 year-old man three times a week, Mr. Vojislav Petrovich, member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Political and Social Sciences, a scientist and engineer. My mother had more and more nerve crises. She pulled the telephone jack out of the wall and tried to throw the television out of the third-floor window. We had a hard time in calming her down. December 6, she beat Christine, broke open the lock on the bathroom door in order to get to her, only to find her with an open Ether bottle ready to commit suicide. I took the video camera and filmed as Christine confided in me everything that my mother had done to her. We placed tape recorders in our absence and recorded my mother saying the following things to Christine and my other sisters: "So, do you like it when Mommy touches you here? Let me see, those are Mommy's genitals. We will have fun tonight? We will have a good time.” No doubt about it, my mother had really gone insane. After that, we moved all of the children into my grandmother's bedroom, except for Caroline, who insisted on remaining with my mother.
We had difficulty in paying for our rent, for Charleston Housing had discontinued our Housing contract and did not want to transfer our certificate to Illinois. Assistant Director, James Heyward in Charleston, SC, said that he no longer wanted to hear from us. He told us, "I am sick of receiving letters from First Lady Clinton, of congressmen and representatives, my desk is stacked with letters about you.” WHO WROTE THESE LETTERS? Certainly, it was not we. Someone tried to dirty our faces in front of the people in Charleston so that we would no longer return. For several years, my mother had poisoned our food, increasingly more frequent, using detergent, Ajax, etc... We started keeping all of the food under key. Yet, so that she can better perform the poisoning, her family sent her a whole box full of surgical needles, a choice of the smallest to the largest, and later a second one, altogether totaling between 400 and 500 needles. During Christmas, as well as during the New Year, my mother called me the worst names in the sexual sense. We did not say anything to her, as we knew that she had problems. In December, I found a Christmas card addressed to my mother from her niece stating the following: "Do not worry for Regis's friend has a very high place in the U.S.A., who has a lot of power." In February, Mr. Petrovich needed to be admitted to the hospital because of foot gangrene. We took him to the hospital of his choice, St. Joseph Hospital. We visited him every day or every other day and brought him his mail. One day, when I was with my grandmother he told us that an U.D.B.-a. (Yugoslavian Secret Service) man tried to kill him. He told us that he was lying in bed and the man had been right next to him. When the man saw that Mr. Petrovich had seen him, he left immediately. I told my father of the incident when we went back home, but my father had a hard time believing the story, because he found it hard for someone to go all the way to the ninth floor and said that maybe it was just someone who was looking for something to steal. One week later, as I passed through the waiting room, leaving from visiting Mr. Petrovich, I saw a man in his forties with a mustache, matching the description that Mr. Petrovich had given me, along with another man speaking in Serbian. As I passed by, I was able to hear their words, which were, "After the injection, two hours later they die.” When they saw me, they immediately stopped talking. I entered the elevator and realized that Mr. Petrovich was in danger. I went back upstairs and pretended to look for some papers, but I had no luck, because the two had separated and pretended that they did not know each other. Mr. Petrovich was discharged from the hospital and given antibiotics to follow for a period of ten to twelve days at home. Mr. Petrovich was a great financial support for us and this hindered a great many people. The week after, in an appointment with Dr. Obradovich, he was told that because of his diabetes, he could not take the antibiotics. Mr. Petrovich was left with a foot gangrene which could at any time inflame to a general infection and cause him to die. We immediately took him to Rush Presbyterian Hospital's emergency room where he was admitted for treatment. He received excellent treatment for about one week. When we came in one day, Mr. Petrovich said, "What is this conspiracy against me? All of a sudden, the attitude of everyone has changed and they don't even seem to want to help me anymore.” We never could tell if it was because someone wanted to hinder us, or if it was because someone wanted him to die because of his many patents, which he refused to sell, or both.
February 11, we were visited by a Department of Children and Family Services investigator. They had received a report stating that my father had sexually abused Caroline, Catherine, and me. The report was found to be false. My mother got scared and asked us to take her to Charleston. When we got there, she decided that she did not want to stay within the first half-hour of our arrival in Charleston and wanted us to take her back all the way to Chicago. The week after, Mr. Stephen Peters came to our home for the investigation. A little angry one day on the telephone, he told us that the letter had come from my aunt from Yugoslavia. In the family, this was a big surprise, and the entire family traveled 150 miles to the American Embassy in Belgrade to file their declaration. By error, the declaration was sent to us at the home address and not at the post office box. This obliged us to ask the post office to transfer all mail addressed to our home to the post office box. We never informed anyone about this maneuver, nor did we speak about it in the house or car. To our great surprise, several times, Mr. Slobodan, the janitor of our building started bringing my mother her mail, giving it to her in her hand. Someone was afraid that the mail from her family would fall into our hands. Who could have informed my mother and the janitor? Another incident occurred with the janitor one day when he came to visit with us. He sat at the table in front of my father and next to him sat my mother (which was very unusual in the first place because she never shows herself when we have company). Despising Mr. Slobodan, I went in the bedroom and closed the curtain door. Through a tiny slit, for some odd reason, I watched them. To my greatest surprise, the two of them, Mr. Slobodan and my mother, exchanged notes. As soon as they had exchanged it, the janitor got up and left. Not only was my mother cooperating with the French through Ms. Suzanne and the rest, but now with the Yugoslavs against the family. Both Services were working together with the same goal in mind, covered up by the American services. Increasingly, someone was taking courage to dirty us in the eyes of neighbors, school, and the Department of Social Services.
My mother's family in France encouraged her to cause the maximum amount of problems and she was supported by someone enabling her to do so. We did not have the time to take care of her troubles, for my father and I went to help Mr. Petrovich. I give him his insulin shots twice a day, his pills three times a day, his meal, and cleaned. While I was there, my father talked to him and kept him company. We learned of his very interesting past. He was born in 1911, and was part of the Resistance against the Communists during the war. After the war, he was imprisoned for political reasons for six months. He was a mine engineer and researcher. In 1957, he immigrated to France; and in 1969, he immigrated to the United States. He had no family to look after him. Interestingly, he told us that when he arrived here in the U.S., information was sent from Yugoslavia that he was a Communist. He said that he had wanted to open up a business, but that he was caused so much trouble that he had no other alternative other than to concentrate on his research. In his apartment, he had set-up a laboratory and he demonstrated to us how he performed his experiments. Out of his very small laboratory came 29 patents. His discoveries focused in the fields of chemistry, biology, and extraction of minerals and metals. Mr. Petrovich said that the American Services are terribly narrow-minded people, for it took years for them to leave him alone after they saw that he spent his life solely between the library and his laboratory. He said that he spent so much time in the laboratory or in the books that he no longer knew if it were day or night outside or, what day it was. He said that only then did they leave him alone. My father was happy to finally find someone who believed him and who understood him. My father told him that our story was a long one, but that exactly the same thing had happened to us. When we came to the U.S., the Yugoslavs sent information saying that my father was a Communist. For 13 years, the services of America have believed them; and the real Communists and Titoists, who are here, are cooperating with the American services.
March 4, after we had finished shopping, we returned home in the evening, and after I parked the car in front of our building, we decided to remain a few minutes to finish talking. As we were talking, I noticed that someone was watching us from the window. I told my father and as I turned to get another look, the man backed away from the window and the light went off in the room. My father and I got the packages ready so we could get home quickly. Just as we were about to leave the car, all of the hallway lights went out in the building. We figured something was wrong, and we decided to go to the back of the building and sound the horn so some of the children could come down and we would not be alone. As we drove to the back of the building, we saw a van with three men in it with a fourth one standing next to it, and a car in a garage with two men there. I knew something was wrong and I honked and got the car ready to leave. They saw that we had understood and the van drove off. The garage door where the car had been was shut. After that, the children and my grandmother came downstairs, and the hallway lights came back on. The set-up was easy to understand. The apartment on the first floor of our entrance was empty. If we had entered through the front door, like we usually did, we could have been easily pulled through the first floor's empty apartment and out of the back door of that apartment to the waiting van.
In April, all of the children and my father went on vacation for one week to South Carolina. For unknown reasons, a new complaint of abuse against the children was opened once more, and May 5, Mr. Edward came over to our house. He was very understanding and nice and explained that he was aware that an investigation had just been closed, but he had to follow procedures and investigate this new complaint. Of course, the "guilty" person was again my father. We talked to him and he understood everything. Much later, we learned that Mr. Edward had had just left the U.S. Army and had been employed by DCFS. Right after investigating us, he resigned from our file. Why??? We never really knew, but our guess is that he had external pressures to turn the case against us. Mr. Edward was a good man with a heart. I do not why, but I feel I have to say that Mr. Edward is black. And, here in America, thousands of times we have seen and experienced that black people always have more heart and comprehension than white people. Right after this, the file was taken over by Ms. Sonia Freemond, a sexy girl out of a nightclub in the Philippines, who had married an American military officer. We protected the children by placing them in the bedroom with their grandmother, all except Caroline, who remained with her mother. She was too much under her mother's influence and she spent her evenings with her mother outside of the house. One day, a 30 year-old man asked the children, "Where is your sister Caroline?" The same night, my father had a conversation with Caroline, and he gave her a slap because she was very rude to him and her behavior was unacceptable. Following the advice of her mother, she went to complain to someone at school. The next day, Sonia Freemond from the Department of Social Services came to our house. She came for ONE slap. I videotaped the entire conversation with Sonia Freemond, in the presence of the translator and Dr. Milenkovic, my father's cousin, who was visiting us at the time. My father called one child after the other, asking them if they were afraid of him. The children laughed when he did so, and at the end, they gave him a kiss. "Ms. Freemond, would you like for me to continue?” "No, no, that is enough." She then spoke to my mother, to Caroline, and then to me. I confided to her some of the things that my mother had done and said to me. Ms. Freemond was stupefied and told me, "I have heard mothers saying bad things to their daughters, but never in my life have I heard that a mother could say something so crude and vulgar, especially in the sexual sense, to her own daughter." She concluded that the family, especially my mother, needed emergency response therapy, but we never saw her again. At the same time, another social worker arrived because he heard from someone, that Christine told someone, that she had seen my father and I in the bathroom together. I showed him that the bathroom did not even have a lock, that my grandmother was with us 24 hours a day, and that there was my mother, grandmother, and five other children. After he questioned Christine, she told him that Caroline had told her that she saw it, and when he questioned Caroline, she said that her mother had said that. The week after, I called the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and asked to speak to Ms. Freemond. The switchboard operator asked, "Sonia, the new worker?" I do not know if she was new. However, she tried to incriminate my father and to cover up for my mother.
In the meantime, we were taking care of all of Mr. Petrovich's needs, for he had to be taken care of constantly between his injections, pills, and having to take him to the hospital often. He was very happy with us and he said that if we were not there to take care of him, he would have died alone and forgotten. He felt sorry that he did not have the money to pay for my father's eye surgery and he insisted that we take his patents and sell them so we could have the money to pay for surgery. My father refused, but after much insistence from Mr. Petrovich, my father paid him a symbolic price for five of the patents. Mr. Petrovich said that we could do whatever we wanted with them so that we could get the money for the surgeries. My mother's depression simply kept aggravating. She was getting more and more sure of herself. She kept saying that she was "protected," she carried around a notebook full of names and addresses, and repeatedly chided that, "it would not be much longer." We were waiting for school to finish so that in June we could go down to South Carolina. The morning of May 25, my mother lost control, and with all her might she pushed my father in the back. He fell. When he caught her to restrain her, she managed to escape with her 300 pounds, losing her balance, falling head into the wall. She had a new hysterical crisis and bit him. He had a hard time restraining her. My grandmother tried to get her to calm down too, but she turned around and slapped my grandmother. The police came, and at 8:30 a.m., they took her to Swedish Covenant Hospital to the psychiatric unit. We got there at 8:45. The doctors promised that they would speak to us too, but asked that we wait just a few minutes. My mother's "great protector" manifested, and the employees at the hospital started looking cross-wise at us. At 11:50, I went home to gather some more papers. As soon as I had left, the doctor went up to my father and grandmother and told them that they too could go home. They waited until 12:10, then decided to wait for me out on the sidewalk. This must have tricked someone that we had gone straight for home; but, actually, I picked them up only at 12:40. Arriving home, we fell face-to-face with men that pretended to be police officers and were trying to move cars from the space where we usually park. It seemed to us that they were looking for our car. They threatened to write two violations if we dare park on the side of the street. There were no signs prohibiting parking. Rudeness is not a common characteristic of normal police officers. We parked very far and called the police station for explanations. They, too, could not explain what was going on, for there was no scheduled street cleaning, etc..., but told us to call back if we had a problem. My mother was very well protected and supported. It seemed to me that they were trying to take away our car so that we would be immobilized. The next morning, Friday, May 26, we left at 7:00 a.m. to go to a Sears mechanic shop. At 8:00 a.m., the children got up as happy as they had ever been. There was no more pressure in the house, for my mother had not been there at all the previous day and night. They got up, washed, brushed, and put on clothes that my grandmother ironed for them. When my grandmother walked them to school, the children kissed her over and over along the way. At 9:00 a.m., Ms. Freemond came by our house and asked my grandmother where I was. She had wanted to kidnap me. At 12:45, she kidnapped the other five children from school. At two o'clock in the afternoon, I was still not in their hands. The hospital called and said that Mr. Petrovich was ready to be discharged, we must come and pick him up immediately. We rented a trailer, packed all of the documents, word processors, valuables, pictures, video and audiotapes, and the dog and cat. We stopped by to see Mr. Petrovich, explained to him what was happening, and left immediately for Washington, D.C. Sunday, May 28, we called our answering machine and found out that Despot had called, I giving us the address and phone number of where he was. He did not want to stay where he was and wanted us to come and get him. May 30, our case was heard in court. We learned the reasons why the children were taken away: 1) domestic violence, 2) alleged sexual abuse with me, and 3) physical abuse with Caroline (still for the month-old slap). It is more than certain that this was extremely well set-up with only one goal: to take away the children from a blind person and his wife who has become insane after so many years of mental torture, causing her to be totally disoriented. Friday, June 2, we called DCFS and we were told that Judge Zissman had authorized an arrest warrant for me. He was afraid that I, who was in my 18th year, would be abused by my blind father in the presence of my grandmother. I have done so much for this family: I was the one who shopped for the household, that looked over my brother's and sisters' school work, the one that gave Mr. Petrovich all of his medical care, and many other things. Judge Zissman authorized an arrest warrant for me, just as if I were a gangster in America. Because of my absence, I had not been able to take care of Mr. Petrovich and he was not able to even die at his home, but in a nursing home. Saturday, June 3, a new message was left on the answering machine. My brother called telling us that he was at 810 W. Montrose. We called and were finally able to get him. We were horrified at what we learned. My grandmother, who is aged, was shocked. America, America, it just was not possible. Our family in Yugoslavia had a hard time believing what we transmitted to them. My brother cried and wanted us to come and get him. It was very apparent that he missed the evenings when my father and him would each get a guitar and play together, sometimes I would accompany them with the piano. They missed their grandmother with whom they would always make cakes and cookies of all kinds and with whom they would play ball. They missed the times (which were frequent) when we would go out and eat ice cream, have a picnic in the park, go shopping, go on vacation, go to the beach, or just on a tour, etc.... They missed the times when I would play chess with them, games, read stories, sing songs, teach them to play the piano, etc... They surely missed their much-loved dog, Dzeki and their cat Maca, for to them they were part of the family. In no case could the children be as happy in a facility as they had been at home. But, of course, where there are people who are cold-hearted and narrow-minded by money, they do not understand. Despot, crying, told us: "Corinne, we are all crying every day all day. The first five days after they kid-napped us, they left us totally naked. We could not even dress. All day long, they inspected us from every angle. They all pretend to be doctors, but they were only a band of sexually obsessed people. Then they transferred us to here. They put oil in the girl's hair against lice. The rooms are more than dirty; we are more that 30 in one room. Every night we take out cots. In the morning, we fold the sheets and blankets and put them in one corner. Not twice have I had the same blanket. The blankets are extremely dirty. Some of the boys say that they have AIDS, but I do not know if it is true. The food is awful. For three days, I have not gone to the bathroom, for I have eaten only bread and water. Everyday, they give us a pill that makes my head spin as if I were drugged. The workers hit us, pinch us, twist our arms, call us names; it is horrible, I want to get out of here. In the beginning, we were all together, and now they are beginning to separate us, more and more. It is worse than the worst jails I have seen in the most horrible films. This Sonia asked me several times, 'What has your father done to you all? What has your father done to you all?’ When I tell, or at least try to tell her that it is not my father, but my mother, she interrupts me quickly and says that she doesn't care about my mother, but wants to know only about what my father does. They want me to say something bad about my Dad." My father could not believe it. He said, "This is happening in the 20th Century in America. This happened in Serbia during the Middle Ages when the Turks would come and kid-nap young boys and take them to Turkey. Then they would train them for the military and send them back to Serbia to fight their own blood. I could never have believed that this would happen in the 20th Century in a country that should be civilized." I am sure that if a true neglect/abuse investigator questioned the children, it would be concluded that the children are in an unsafe environment and are being abused by the workers themselves. It is time for Ms. Sonia Freemond and the other workers there to stop playing with other people's children like dolls. If they did not have a happy childhood and could not play pretend when they were younger, it is not by taking other people's children that they should fill their childhood happiness void. June 7, my father started a hunger strike in front of the White House. Every day, I called the radio stations, the television stations, and the newspapers of the area and asked them how it was possible for a blind man to be hunger-striking next to the White House and not a word be said about it in the news, not a picture taken, nothing. After ten days of hunger striking, still no one printed anything. This affair was very well stifled by the C.I.A. who was determined that the least amount of people know. Several Americans came up to us and apologized on the behalf of all good-hearted Americans and themselves for what their government had made us live through. Many foreigners told us, "I feel very bad for what has happened. If you had been in my country this would have never happened." A great many people were touched and offered us best wishes. Then, there were some who came up and laughed at us with a cynical smile, or told us that we were stupid, or that we did not know what we were talking about. We already knew those people. They were exactly the same people who had made us suffer so long; they were part of the dark side of America. When a large group of people were gathered, a Secret Service officer of the White House would come and stand with the group and mock us, start laughing, or tell the people to move on. So stupid are they that they did not even realize that they are just demonstrating that they are cold-hearted, rude, and just covering up; instead, in their little minds, they thought they were protecting America's honor. I once heard, "It is better for people to think you are a fool, rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt." The one encounter that remained in our memory the most was with a man who must have been in his sixties, accompanied by a bodyguard who was holding and umbrella over him. That person turned and gave my grandmother a look so full of hate that my grandmother froze. She said, "In all my life, I have never seen a look so full of hate, as the one that day." Later, our guess was that it is a possibility that this person, the scum of America, is the one who has dishonored his country so much. June 16, I called the White House at about 2:00 p.m. to ask for assurance and security. I was told that I was in Washington, D.C., that nothing could happen to me, and I was asked for the telephone number of where I was so that I could be reached. I asked for a guarantee that this information would not be used to capture me. The reply was, "Corinne, the White House does not engage in capturing or giving out that information." At 5:15 p.m., two police officers banged on my hotel room as my grandmother and I were getting ready to go see my father in front of the White House. One of them immediately took his flashlight and inspected every closet and space, while the other asked me for identification. I was shown no paper, and when I asked why they were there, they told me I would be told when I got to the police station, and that I must go with them. I called the Yugoslav Consulate, wrote a note on a piece of paper indicating to the taxi driver that my grandmother does not speak English and that she wanted to be taken to the White House. My grandmother, seeing that they were taking me away, started to pull her hair, shout, cry, and kept on screaming, "What am I suppose to do, alone, not knowing a word of English? Where are you taking her?" The way I was treated, I could have sworn that I thought I had been mistaken for Al Capone, even though I had put up no resistance and I was sitting on the edge of a bed in a short shirt and shorts, with no lethal weapons around me. I insisted that they give my grandmother the telephone number of where I would be, so that I could be reached. One of them wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. I was then driven to the Howard County Police Station. In the meantime, my grandmother had arrived in front of the White House and she went up to my father in tears and told him what had happened. He immediately dropped everything and went to the pay phone so that he could call. The telephone number given was a fake one. That night, my grandmother and father went to the police station that was next to Valencia hotel and asked to see me. The policemen there told them that I was not there, but at the county station and that the next morning, a county police car would come to pick both of them up so that they could drive them to see me. Upon my arrival to the station, I was brought before a very proud and arrogant Detective Proudlock, who was completely disinterested in anything I had to say, after which a lieutenant came to speak with me. I had managed to grab a copy of the file and videotape before my kid napping, and I showed it to the lieutenant. He could not come to his senses and told me, "Corinne, I really don't understand how it is possible for you to have so many proofs against your mother and for her to still be covered up like this. The Department of Children and Family Services in Chicago asked me to keep you here until the end of the week before someone can come get you. There is really nothing I can do to help you here, except for the fact that I can consider you a runaway. That would mean that I cannot lock you up and I would have the right to keep you only for six hours, after which I have the right to release you if they do not pick you up by then." However, when Ms. Irizarry from DCFS heard that, she immediately boarded a plane and arrived at Baltimore Washington Airport at 11:13 p.m. The police officers drove me to the airport and transferred me to her custody. I spent the entire night at the airport, extremely weary, tired, on an airport bench, shivering, with Ms. Irizarry, who refused to make any accommodations for me. It was only at 6:25 a.m. the next morning, June 17, that we boarded a plane for Chicago. I was flown under a false name, Mary Delaney, for "safety/security reasons." Meanwhile, the next morning, my father and grandmother were taken to the Howard County Police Station to see me. Of course, I was at that time already on a plane to Chicago and the police officers refused to drive them back. They had to pay a taxi for more that twenty miles of driving. They had very little money left and had to pay for a motel room as well as to take care of the car and trailer that were left on the parking lot after I had been taken. When my father called the White House to ask them what he was to do after they caused all of this, the lady told him to sell the car and trailer and the camcorder, cameras, everything, so that he would have the money to get back to Chicago. They were extremely happy that this affair would be finally stifled. My dad and grandmother asked for help from several organizations, including Salvation Army, etc..., but everyone refused. One priest said he would help by saying prayers for them, but that was all he could do. A couple of priests paid for a night of stay and some nights they spent in the car. The Serbian Community in Chicago heard that the children had been taken away, and a lady by the name of Vesna Radovich called my father and told him her story. Her children, too, had been taken away four years ago. There, too, was no abuse or neglect, but they were still keeping them. She told him that she knew many people who had their children taken away. She said that the majority of them are from Eastern Europe, Mexico, or are African-American. An idea came to my father's mind and he asked, "Mrs. Radovich, have you ever had any problems with the Yugoslavian Secret Service, truthfully?” "Oh, yes," she replied, "Before returning to the United States while in Yugoslavia, they came up to me and said, 'Mrs. Radovich, you are the manager of a building and your husband is a musician. You have a lot of contact with people and the information you could gather would be very useful for us.' I refused to cooperate because I told them that when I went to visit people it was as a friend and not as a spy. I told them that they very well knew where I was from and that my family had been massacred by the Communists, and I refused anything that had to do with them. Upon my return to Chicago, I enrolled the children in school, and my daughter one day refused to go to school. I questioned her and she said that the male teacher puts his finger in her anus when she is in the coatroom. I turned around and told my husband what she said. When she repeated her story the next day, I decided to go see the principal. The principal immediately turned the story around and said that she must have been abused by my husband. DCFS came and my children were taken away. The policewoman who came to take my children away is the one who has them in her home today. They take children away from Polish, Russian, or Serbian families, after which they are placed in foster homes and the families there are paid $1,000.00 a month per child. It is an incredible business. I am a lucky person for I at least know where my children are. I was so humiliated and taken advantage of, that it is unbelievable. First, I was told that I was aggressive; then, that I had epilepsy, and after one diagnosis was disproved, another was created. Every time that I had finished one test, I was made to take another one. This was done on purpose, of course, to drag the time. I was then told that if I divorced from my husband, I would get my children back. We have been divorced for two and one-half years, but I still do not have my children. If I go to see them, the policewoman tells me to leave or she will arrest me. I have the right to see them for one hour, once a month. The policewoman tried to adopt them. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars hiring attorneys and this was just barely opposed. I know a doctor who also had two children taken away. He knows that one of them is here somewhere in Chicago, but he does not know where the other one is. I know of another Radovich who also had political problems who had a fifteen year-old daughter who was taken away. She was put on a wrong path and got pregnant as a minor." She told him much more, but I believe you have gotten the general idea.
Fortunately, a priest from Chicago sent two young men who were studying to become priests to help them get back in Chicago. They took turns driving the car and trailer to Chicago. When they arrived in Chicago, they parked the car in front of the apartment building and asked my grandmother which apartment was theirs. My grandmother got out of the car, and could not recognize any part of the neighborhood. She was so shocked that she did not know her address, nor how or which building it was, nor remember any aspect of the apartment she had left only one month earlier. My father was obliged to give the priests the address and they had to search where it was located. Meanwhile, my brother, who was 12 years old at the time, went on a hunger strike for ten days. He was hospitalized and then transferred to a psychiatric hospital, because he wanted to return to his father. Caroline, meanwhile, continued to make plans with her mother with the goal of incriminating my father as much as possible, so that they could leave for France while he is in jail. All of the children were terribly depressed. Dr. Matkovic called our answering machine and left us a message, "Mr. Despotovic, please contact us, the children are in a terrible state." While the rest of the children were traumatized and Despot was lying in a hospital bed, Caroline was receiving lace lingerie from France. Her mother was encouraging her to stay in a foster home where she would receive $300.00 a month. Despite the fact that Caroline no longer had contact with my father, she continued to make up stories and lengthen the accusation list. Caroline was allowed to come and go as she pleased and she considered herself happy. My mother was given the right to go to the hospital to visit Despot, who was hunger striking to be allowed to return to his father, with an I.V. in his arm. While he lay there, she told him it would be a good idea for him to be placed in a foster home too, so that he too could get $300.00 a month and for him to save that money because she would need it later. In June, Catherine ran away from the foster home and got on a bus to get back home. She knew that we lived off Pulaski Road, but she had no idea where. Because she did not know where to get off, she was returned to the foster home. (We later learned that she got on at 15,900 South, and we lived 4,300 North. That is a difference of about 20 miles.) Christine secretly called my father in July and told him, "Dad, they told me that I did not have the right to call you, but I am calling you anyway." The following is a letter I wrote to my grandmother and father in June of 1995, while hidden in Mr. Petrovich's apartment, after I had runaway from the foster home. "Dear Grandma and Dad: "Ms. Irizarry and I were to wait until 6:25 A.M. to board a plane back to Chicago, giving her a chance to tell me about her private life. She has two children, I believe, of nine and twelve years of age. She works at a department, which is supposed to protect children, but she tells me, "My kids drive me crazy sometimes so much that I feel like plastering them... That I feel like throwing them against the wall or strangling them..." AND THIS LADY WORKS TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM ABUSE!!! I asked her how they had found out where I was. She said that she did not know everything, but they had known my location Thursday afternoon and Friday they went to court to get an arrest warrant transferred to Washington, D.C. Then they had picked me up and she had been obliged to come get me. How had they known at which hotel I was staying? They had paid a detective to follow me after I left from visiting you at the White House. That is what they call American Liberty. Serial rapists, serial murderers, criminals, they do not know where they are. However, a young girl who has helped her family, who has done everything she can to get her brother and sisters back, and who goes to bring water to her father in front of the White House, Oh my God!!! Quickly hire detectives, she is a great criminal!!! Engage the courts in two different states to bring her back so that our Mafia in Chicago will not be as dirty as she is telling people they are, so that we can silence her once she is in our hands. "At 6:25 A.M., Saturday morning (June 17, 1995) we boarded the plane. After our arrival in Chicago, Ms. Irizarry drove me to Maryville Foster Center at 810 W. Montrose. There, they even have bullet-proof windows, which are not really there to protect the children, but rather so that their screams cannot be heard from the street. Children there are drilled to believe that they have been abused, and they break them to place them in foster homes. I refused to submit to a physical exam. Worse would I have been if I had accepted, for I would have had to go to the third floor, where girls as young as 15 have a child, others who have several, and others who are pregnant. Along with teenage motherhood, if it can so be called, comes the street-found language. It is with panic that I faced this, not for myself, but for my younger sisters, Camille (8 years of age), Christine (10), Catherine (11), and Caroline (14), who are in the tender years of their character development. The children who are locked up there would go into crisis and rages, would throw objects, howl, kick, and everything else. The staff would tie them down, or to the chairs, or hold them until the child gives up. If the child would reach to grab the phone to call their parents, it would be snatched from them, and they would be thrown to the floor. One of the girls there was twelve years of age and did not even know how to spell her name. I spent two days with her and taught her number order and how to write her name. When she would go into rages, the staff would tie her down, but I would go up to her and tell her that if she got quiet, I would play cards with her. Immediately, she stopped. The staff looked at me, amazed. We had outings, and once we were with a group of little boys, one of them who remembered Despot. He said that Despot had continually asked to be with his father. I felt very badly about all of the children there, for all of them could not wait to go back home and were there only because of a whim of a social worker. "Monday, June 19, Ms. Irizarry appeared to take me to court. I asked to call my parish priest, but it was continually refused to me. Upon my arrival to Juvenile Court, I am introduced to my attorney, Nancy Gargano, James Burton, Supervisor of P.A.L. Guardians, Mr. Lawrence Page, attorney for the state, and another P.A.L. guardian, who is not directly involved in the case. “When I told Mr. Lawrence Page that I had sent over 75 copies of the letter and over 20 video tapes to different agencies, he fell into the chair, dumbfounded. Mrs. Nancy Gargano tells me that I must either submit to a medical exam or the court, Judge Zissman, would order one, and I would be taken in by force. This is the country that is called the Champion of Liberty. I imposed several conditions: 1) that I would not be medicated 2) that I would be informed of all procedures beforehand, 3) that I would not undergo brain scans, and that 4) there would be no psychiatric evaluation, though I knew there would be a psychological evaluation When my attorney stated brain scans to the court, the court had a hard time restraining their laughter. I had to stand up for myself and tell them that my condition was not unfounded, for Despot had been forced to undergo an ultrasound of the brain. Judge Zissman was apparently not aware of that fact and not very happy about it. Upon my departure from court, Ms. Irizarry said, "What you told the judge was not very nice.” Of course, anything that puts her in an uneasy spot was not considered nice. I asked the judge that instead of going to a foster home, I be allowed to go to our priest's home, but this was turned down. I asked the judge why I am not allowed to speak to the other children. He said, ‘You might orchestrate something and you would be smart enough to do that.’ If I wish to write letters to my brother and sisters, I must give the letter to Ms. Irizarry, who will read it, and if she finds nothing offensive, she will deliver it to my brother and sisters. If she does, however, find something offensive, she will tear it up and inform me that she has “censored” it! Judge Zissman told me that he wanted the best for us and "that he did not doubt my father was a good man, for he had received personal letters testifying to his good character from all over the world.” I asked him if he had read my letter, and he said he had not yet, because it had been given to the Sheriff's Department to make sure it was safe to open, after which, IF it were, he would read it! "I was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital to have the exam. It was noticed that my blood pressure was quite high, and that it was due to stress. I talked to a psychologist who kept trying to veer the conversation towards making me say that I felt sad. I do not know how many times I had to tell her that if I felt sad it was only because of the forced separation and that yes, I do have plans for my own future, and that no, my father is not a dictator at home. I was given an intelligence test, result: over the 99th percentile for my age group. I no longer know how many times I requested calling my attorney or Father Djura. I was continually told that I could not do so. I finally stayed in my room and refused to speak to anyone until I could talk to my priest. Finally, a nurse comes to get me and tells me that I can call my attorney, but that she must listen to the conversation. My attorney finally finds a way for me to speak to my priest, but once again, someone must listen in. I ask her why I still cannot call my father, and she said because I may tell him where I am at, and the reason why someone must listen while I speak to my priest is because I "might fabricate something." I told her that I really did not know that I was an Al Capone who was or would be giving his fellow Al Capones out of jail directions on putting a bomb in New York. "Mrs. Karen Burgers and a Mr. Michael picked me up from Mt. Sinai Hospital at 3:45 P.M., Friday, June 23, and drove me to Lakewood Home. Again, with file and videotape in hand, I told my story. Before leaving me there, they gave me a hug and both of them wished me lots of good luck. “I was shocked after arriving at the foster home. The subject conversation revolved only around sex, boys, and how beautiful they are. One twelve-year-old girl could not forget how she had let seventeen (17) men sleep with her free. Twelve years old and she cannot forget how seventeen men had slept with her for free. How many had slept with her for pay??? Dear God, My Lord, in these same types of foster homes are where Camille, Christine, Catherine, and Caroline are. Despot is a boy, and I do not know what their subject of conversation is, but I have a feeling that he must be suffering wherever he is. The girls also discussed drugs, and I believe all of them smoke. You can be sure that I was regarded as very, very abnormal. Can you believe me when I tell you that I could not sleep all night long? How could I? I had to hold on to my bed so that I would not faint. How could I sleep when they were saying that this was good money and an easy job? I could not help but think of my little sisters who are young, small, and that they were most likely hearing the same things. How could I sleep when I had worked seventeen years to rear my sisters with good moral behavior, and that I had to be exemplary so that they would have a role model other than their mother to look at? Despot, in one of his letters, told me in a poem, "Corinne is my big sister, with no blisters; Corinne is my big sister who can never sleep, nor play; Corinne is my big sister who loves books, but never has time to look; Corinne is my big sister, who has been my mother." Why so much sacrifice when at the utmost whim of a department, they have the right to come in and take your brother and sisters because of the allegations of a mother who says that her husband abuses her children? Why??? "If my mother, if she can so be called, had really worked for us and had suddenly fallen ill, I would have been the first to help her. However, this was never the case. Furthermore, I will do everything I can to make sure my brother and sisters are protected. EVERYTHING. I promised it to myself when I was younger, because she had physically abused me, and there is no reason for her to be allowed to abuse them. I remember her threatening the children from saying anything because she had carried them nine months and the judge would attribute the children to her. If she thinks her maternal duties end there, she is wrong. "Dad, we came to the United States in November of 1982. We stayed at Hotel Vista International, and from our window, we could see the Statue of Liberty. I had asked you what it was. You had told me, "That is WHY we have come here." I was young and could not understand more. However, I still will not forget that. America says that is has much abundance; however, we had encountered famine. America says that it has something called human rights. I cannot tell you what that means because I have not been able to experience that. At school, we would read stories about little boys or girls who would come to the U.S.A., and heavens, they were happy. How many times I wished that our family could be the same way. How many times did I wish that I could drink from the Cup of Liberty, just one sip. Yes, we have walked with our heads held high, disregarding the shame that was tried to be placed on our family. We have always been able to look the other person straight in the eye. Many people say that I am bold. I take that as a compliment. At school, I remember my classmates stating the reason why they disliked me: "Because you have character, you are so strong.” Thank you. But all of this did not come by itself. I had to suffer, and work hard, and endured many hardships to reach that point. Despot was placed in a mental hospital because he would not eat; he was on a hunger strike. I asked why someone on a hunger strike would be considered abnormal --- because, according to them, to starve yourself is considered suicidal. Have they forgotten, surely they have, that when Despot was a baby, he did not have anything to eat. Not because of neglect, but because the Department of Social Services, would not provide milk nor Food Stamps. When we tried to sell our toys, they forbade people from buying them. "Despot had to drink cookies dissolved in tea in his bottle. Now, when we have everything that we could possibly want, but peace, the Department of Children and Family Services comes in to our family life to inspect my behind to make sure that I am not being abused. Last August, we again saw the Statue of Liberty, and as I stood there to look at it, I thought to myself, ‘Yes, you are just as hollow physically as the truth for which you supposedly stand for.’ To me there, it was like a big lie standing in the middle of the harbor, like the first page of a book saying, ‘Here I am; I am lighting your way to a country full of lies.’ I saw America through the people that run it. For example, the White House who aided in my kid-napping; Through the people that were afraid I would receive an education, and who prohibited me from enrolling in school, for ‘American schools are only for American citizens;’ Through my fellow classmates who laughed and mocked me when they found out I was not a citizen; Through the people who were supposedly our friends, but left our home without even saying good-bye because they had seen my school grades; Through the people that put nails around our house, snakes in our home, needles in our clothes; Through the gun-shots against our van and through the cutting of our tires repeatedly; And, of course, through those who came to take away my brother and sisters. I saw American Justice through being put in jail for what I believe in and for standing up for my family. I saw America through tears the last twelve years. ‘One should not judge a book by its cover.’ I did not. I was young and my heart and spirit had much room for hope and love. And when I look back to that cover picture of the Statue of Liberty at age five, twelve years later, half-way through the book, I must say, I have not had many good experiences. None of my experiences were as bold and as full of glory as the statue stands, except the ones with my brother and sisters, my grandmother, and my father. My native country, France, gave that statue as a gift to the U.S.A. It was a symbol for what America was supposed to stand for. How I wish, and I am sure that I am not the only one, that it would be well represented. I am only 17, I am still young, and somehow, I still have a little bit of hope left. Maybe, just maybe, as sometimes happens in stories, the story will change. Dear God, I certainly hope so! "The psychologist that I spoke to at the hospital asked me how I could place so much belief in the political stories, experiences you say that you encountered, Dad. I told her that what I have lived through for the second part of your life, gives me enough credibility so that I believe everything else about your experiences. They do not like it when I say the word Mafia. They try to say that I am crazy. However, whoever is behind this will not change my position. I want my brother and sisters, because I love them, because there was no reason for them to be taken away, because they would be in the best possible care, and because I do not want this Mafia to get a hold of them. The social workers and judge want me to believe that they are here for my good. Where were they when we had nowhere to live, when we had nothing to eat, when I was discriminated against, and when we were hurt? When we asked for help then, they would not come because we were not American citizens. Now when we are old enough to be placed on the street, they come to our ‘rescue.’ They come and inspect our genitals to see how much money they can make off us. And of course, they find legal ways to do it. "So, I spent Saturday and Sunday in the foster home. Monday morning, I had to go to see the director of the foster homes program, Mrs. Yvonne Brown-Watson. She could not understand why I was in the program, and while I was there, she received a call from Ms. Irizarry who asked that I be placed in isolation. I continued to talk to her and explained to her the entire file. She concluded that she did not understand why I was to be placed in isolation, and let me return to the foster home. I had known I had to runaway quickly, and Sunday, I had managed to smuggle purchasing hair color and to keep two dollars to buy a bus ticket. Upon my return to the foster home, I colored my hair and very narrowly escaped. In a Country of Liberty, at 17 years of age, I had to fight to remain alive, and free. I have had some time to read a magazine called The World and I, published by the Washington Times Corporation. One article was very interesting, and titled Abuses of the Child Abuse War. Another had some very interesting information: --"70% of juveniles placed in correctional facilities grew up in homes without fathers." --"Radical feminists and advocates of alternate lifestyles have tried, for example, to make it appear that the rise of the euphemistically designated 'female-headed household' is a perfectly viable alternative to old patriarchal male-headed, two-parent families. That is, at best, dangerously mis-leading." --Both from The World and I, July 1995, p.29 --"All the evidence we have so far, however, indicates that the welfare state cannot substitute for the family." --From The World and I, July 1995, p.31." June 19, while I was in court, the same day, though I had no idea at the time, Mr. Petrovich "died" at the hospital due "to heart failure.” Whether he died on his own or whether he was made to die, I do not know. However, we were listed in the medical files as his family, and whenever the doctors had previously had a question or needed authorization for something, we had been called. However, we received no phone call, no letter, nothing to let us know that he had died. They had stifled his death as if they had been afraid that we would ask for an autopsy. June 26, I ran away from the foster home. I ended up hiding in Mr. Petrovich's apartment. In the meantime, my father, with the few words of English that he knew, tried calling people to get information. By accident, while talking to translator, Jean Benkovski, he learned that there was a court hearing June 30. He appeared at the criminal court June 30, and asked the receptionist where he was supposed to be. After all the computer files were checked, he was told that there was no hearing set for that day, and that he was not even in the computer. Just as my father and grandmother were about to leave, they saw my mother entering the court followed by a few people. They decided to follow her and waited in the room that she was waiting. Their name was called and the hearing was performed. Why was my father's name not listed in any files? Why did he not receive any notification whatsoever? The goal was, of course, that he not attends and that he be arrested later for not appearing. Not only were such dirty set-ups maneuvered, but the translator, a French woman, Mrs. Morgan, would turn things around, even though she spoke both languages perfectly. For example, when my father refused to be represented by an attorney, the judge tried to convince him to accept. Finally, my father accepted on the condition that he could address the court himself as well for five or ten minutes. Mrs. Morgan, however, translated that my father accepted an attorney if he could also speak to his "mother" (in French, the word court and mother are very different) for five or ten minutes. Mrs. Morgan could not have simply just made a mistake, but she permitted herself to turn such phrases around because she ignored how much English my father knew. After my father corrected her, she apologized. The judge paused and sensed that the situation was abnormal, but he did not take time to investigate. Afterwards, he spoke with Attorney Albukerk so that my father could explain to him with happened the morning of May 24 between my father and mother. With Mrs. Morgan translating, He told the whole story once, and then a second time. He was concentrated on explaining how the rooms are located and trying to include all the details of that morning. Finally, he had to explain a third time, and finally Mr. Albukerk got angry and said, "You've told me this story three times, and not once has it been the same.” My father finally realized what was happening, and he turned to Mrs. Morgan and in small phrases, once again explained, listening to every word she was saying. This time, Mrs. Morgan pretended to finally understand everything, and things went well. Four or five months later, my father was represented with another translator and learned that the judges and attorneys in that court were all aware of my father supposedly saying that he would put a bomb in their court building. At the end of June, my father met Ms. Mildred Irizarry who came to visit us in our apartment, along with another social worker. The questions were numerous, but one of them was, "in which way did my father punish the children if they misbehaved.” He explained that usually he raised his voice, and that is usually enough, but it also depends on what the children did. He said for example, if Caroline, who is 5 1/2 feet tall kicks Christine (the smallest), who only comes up to Caroline's belly button; in that case, he would probably make Caroline sit down and have Christine return the one or more kicks that Caroline gave her, etc... All of his explanations were useless. It was very apparent that Ms. Irizarry had taken my mother's side. Due to the fact that she was even more overweight than my mother was, they had solidarity amongst themselves. Ms. Irizarry herself had already been divorced for eight years and, what a coincidence --- her brother, with whom she was close, was in the U.S. Army. July 5, was the date of the first hearing in Juvenile Court. Judge Zissman kept provoking and threatening my father that he would put him in jail. Finally, my father took his belt off, gave it to the judge, and told him to put him in jail. Only at that point did the judge see that my father was not afraid of going to jail and did he stop from outright provoking him.
Meanwhile, my mother's greatest wish of coming to visit me in the foster home, so that she can then give me a cynical smile and "show" me that it was because of her that I was there, had still not been fulfilled. She proudly announced to the judge that she had given the court all possible addresses of where I could possibly be. Judge Zissman allowed my father and grandmother to bring cakes to the children. Very happy, he called Mrs. Radovich and told her that the judge had authorized them to bring cookies for the children. "They won't give them to the children," she told him. My father asked her why, since the judge had authorized it. "Because," she said, "They don't want the children to be reminded of home at all. This is a business that they have. They will accept the cakes, but they will not give them to the children. I know. I've been there." Her husband told my father, "They treat the children like prisoners. I have seen with my own eyes, where children were tied to one another with a chain leaving a six-story building and getting into a bus. You will see a very dark side of America now." My grandmother baked five big plates of biscuits and cookies, those that could be stored for quite a long time and they brought them to Ms. Irizarry, the social worker, so that they could be given to the children. When my father called her later to see if the children had received the cookies, Ms. Irizarry said that they had been thrown away, because they had not been able to give the cookies to the children the same day. Mrs. Radovich had been right. In July, Despot called my father, asked him to bring him some food, and told him exactly what he wished to eat. So, my father and grandmother prepared a suitcase full of food containing chicken, bread, salad, cheese, fresh cherries, and cookies and brought it to my brother at the foster home so that he could eat it. The staff there gave him the suitcase, let him eat some of it that night, and threw the rest of it away. Revolted, my brother started another hunger strike. At the time, he was calling my father every day, and one day he told my father that he was calling him from the hospital. Only then did my father, surprised, find out that he had not been eating for a week already. My brother went on a hunger strike for a full twelve days in July, and wrote a letter to Judge Zissman as follows: "Dear Judge Zissman," "I wonder why I was taken away from home. I was safe and happy there with my Dad, my grandma, and my older sister. They took me away because they said that my father was abusing me. But, my Dad never abused me. They put me in this group home. I do not feel safe here and the doors are all open. The staff hits the kids with broomsticks and punches. The kids are all careless. They are sloppy and messy. They are also gay. I still can't wait to go home. Here at the group home, I cry every day because I miss my Dad and home. If you can allow my grandma or grandma and Dad to come bring me food, I will be happy to eat it. However, I will not eat UHLICH food. It is disgusting. Plus, it doesn't give an appetite. This place drives me up the walls and now I can't take it any more. I am telling you that I WANT TO GO HOME WITH MY DAD AND GRANDMA!! You wouldn't know how much it would mean to me if you could write out an order that I could go home with my Dad. Going home with my Dad is my biggest wish. Even money or anything else couldn't change my mind. It would be like going to heaven. I love my Dad very much and my grandma. And if you could write out an order before the next court date that I can go home with my Dad, you wouldn't know how much it would mean to me. Remember, I can't take it anymore. I want to go home with my Dad and grandma. "Despot Despotovic "July 17, 1995"
August 3, the court had a good time creating a comedy play. They all could not even control their laughter as they read certificates of more than twenty years ago regarding my father's political history. Judge Zissman issued a one-mile restraining order forbidding my father and grandmother to get anywhere near the foster home where Despot was. Then, they enacted a whole show testifying to what was in the bag of food that my grandma gave to my brother. The only other question left to ask was whether the chicken was fried or roasted. Though they see each other every day, they began spelling their names, letter by letter, for the "record," etc... My father had tried to control himself, but he got down on all fours and took a few steps crawling, feeling the floor for something, after which he got up. He had gotten the attention of the entire court, and the judge asked him, "Mr. Despotovic, are you looking for something?" "Yes," he said. "For what?" asked the judge. "For justice," replied my father. "TO JAIL!" yelled the judge. He spent the night in jail, and August 4, he was again brought before Judge Zissman. The judge told my father that DCFS needed to get into the apartment to gather the children's clothes, except those of Despot because he saw no reason why he could not return to my father. (One year later he still could not even contact my father.) So five police officers took my father and my grandmother to the apartment. They spread out all around, looking everywhere as if somebody were to attack them. Despite the fact that my father was to be considered a free man because he was to be released just after they had picked up the clothes, they hand-cuffed him. As soon as the door to the apartment was opened they all spread out inside and turned the entire apartment upside-down, inside-out. They looked at EVERY single piece of paper, EVERY box, EVERY little space, emptying EVERYTHING on the floor. My father grabbed a pear to eat, but they snatched it out of his hand, forbade him to eat it, and handcuffed him to the chair. After more than two hours of search, they had found nothing to incriminate my father and they left very unhappy. Because the police were missing a release form from the judge and could not get it until the weekend had passed, my father was obliged to spend an additional three days in jail. On August 25, the judge said that the extra three days would serve as punishment because my father had approached the foster home. This is their technique: They provoke the parents so that, revolted, the parents contact their children. After that, the court spends months talking about the incident, dragging the time.
My father and grandmother got ready to go to the White House to protest once more; however, they received a call from a French psychiatrist Michel Louvain for an exam. My father went to see him, and he found that Dr. Louvain had difficulty moving, for half of his body was paralyzed. My father had hope that his mind worked well, however. The conversation lasted 40-45 minutes and the questions were simple. He was asked to describe the relationship between his wife and him, and then asked if he knew why he was there. My father answered, "Yes, to examine my mental state.” Somewhere in the conversation, Dr. Louvain wanted my father to speak about the explosion, his problems with the Secret Service, etc... My father felt the trap right away, and he rounded off his answer to, "Those are stories of the past, and I do not like to speak about them much." Later, once again, Dr. Louvain insisted on the same subject. My father had to answer that it was a very complex problem, and it would take a very specialized person who knew and understood politics, and government agencies, in order for my Dad to be able to explain his case. My father apologized, but told the doctor that he did not have the impression that he was competent in that area. Leaving his office, my father had a bad feeling that either the doctor had taken my mothers side or that someone had contacted him and that the report would be "tricked.” My father was not mistaken. The repo |
At the same time, they sent her a card where they offered her support and protection. On this card, the following was written: "Even more since Regis's best friend has a very high place in the U.S.A., and a lot, a lot of power." The sad truth: As they had already told her, "Americans walk by the stick," and it was the French D.S.T. that governs in the United States via Washington, D.C.
