A federal jury today convicted a Canadian woman of
international parental kidnapping, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie
R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jim
Lewis of the Central District of Illinois.
Sarah M. Nixon, 48, of Montreal, was found guilty of one
count of international parental kidnapping for taking her minor-aged child from
the United States in July 2015 with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise
of the father’s rights. Sentencing has
been scheduled for April 24, 2017 before U.S. District Judge Colin S. Bruce of
the Central District of Illinois.
Evidence at trial established that after a custody trial
where it was apparent that Nixon would lose custody of her six-year-old
daughter, Nixon fled the United States with the child in the middle of the
night. When she did not appear for the
custody ruling and neither she nor her daughter could be located, law
enforcement issued a child abduction alert.
Nixon and the child were eventually located in a farmhouse in rural
Ontario, Canada. Authorities then
returned the child to the father. Nixon
was arrested in New York on Sept. 20, 2015 as she attempted to return to the
United States.
The FBI; Urbana, Illinois, Police Department; University of
Illinois Police Department; Illinois Department of Children and Family
Services; Ontario Provincial Police; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
investigated the case, with assistance from the Champaign County, Illinois,
State’s Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Office of
International Affairs. Trial Attorneys
Elly M. Peirson and Lauren S. Kupersmith of the Criminal Division’s Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Section are prosecuting the case.
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