ME: Father's bid to have son returned is stymied

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.co.../2219993.shtml

Thursday, December 08, 2005
Father's bid to have son returned is stymied

By DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer

NORRIDGEWOCK -- Bruce Holt of Martin Stream Road says the city of
Elizabethtown, Ky., must have a saying similar to the half-joking "Welcome
to Maine, now go home."

The Elizabethtown version, he said, goes something like: "Welcome to Hardin
County -- good luck getting your son back."

Holt, along with his brother Eric Holt and nephew Dana Knight, traveled
1,300 miles by car to Elizabethtown, 44 miles south of Louisville, this past
week to bring Holt's 7-month-old baby back home.

He arrived home Tuesday, empty-handed.

Holt, 47, had hoped to return with his son, Zachary, whom he said was
illegally taken from his home Nov. 6 by the baby's mother, Jennifer Sargent.
Court papers show Holt was granted sole custody of the child in Twelfth
District Court in Skowhegan in November after Sargent failed to show for
scheduled hearings.

Sargent, 21, was arrested Nov. 30 in Elizabethtown on a warrant after a
nationwide teletype was broadcast by Maine State Police the same day. She is
charged with criminal restraint by a parent, a Class C felony punishable by
up to five years in the state prison.

Sargent allegedly took the baby, along with the child's birth certificate
and Social Security card, when she left. Holt spent the next three weeks
putting up missing-child posters.

State Police Trooper Bernard Brunette and Deputy Richard Putnam of the
Somerset County Sheriff's Department left Wednesday by air to bring Sargent
back to Maine to face charges. Sargent waived her right to fight her return
to Maine. They are due back Friday. Sargent could be in court for
arraignment by Monday.

The baby remains in Kentucky in the custody of social workers in
Elizabethtown after a judge this week overruled the Maine custody order,
Holt said.

He said he was called to court by Sargent's lawyer, but was not allowed to
say anything. He said he was told the court appearance was a preliminary
hearing to establish custody of Zachary.

Sargent was in court, but did not testify either, he said.

Telephone calls to Elizabethtown this week and last week revealed little on
the status of the child. Officials would not comment on the case.

Police there said the case was out of their hands. A court clerk said she
could not give out information, including the name of Sargent's lawyer, over
the telephone and someone at social services in Elizabethtown would not
discuss this case or any other case. "I was shocked the way we were
treated," Eric Holt said Wednesday. "The baby's in Kentucky.

My brother got to see that baby for one hour in a smaller room than the
baby's mother's jail cell."

Bruce Holt said he was told Sargent went from Georgia to Kentucky. Sargent
has shaved her head since leaving Maine.

Police in Elizabethtown told The News-Enterprise newspaper that Sargent went
to a domestic violence shelter in that city where she arrived. Holt said he
was asked by social workers if he was a drug user and if he had abused
Sargent.

He said he was not a drug user, nor had he ever hit Sargent.

"They had me take a urine test down there before I could see my son," he
said. "They started asking if I was a heroin addict, if I smoked pot every
day."

Holt said social services workers accused him of ripping Sargent's hair out
in clumps, so badly that she had to shave her head.

He said the workers told him Sargent had bruises and red marks and that she
had been told he was going to find her and kill her if he could.

"She got a call from church people in Maine saying that Bruce knows where
you're at and is coming to kill you," Eric Holt said. "That was said right
in court -- that he was going to kill her, but on Thanksgiving Day he was up
here putting posters up."

Bruce Holt said he was not allowed to speak in court this week in
Elizabethtown and was advised by the judge to get a lawyer before saying
anything.

"They wouldn't let me talk, wouldn't let me say nothing," Holt said. "We
spent six days total down there and $3,000 has been spent so far, now the
state of Kentucky's got him."

Holt said it is as if the state of Kentucky has laws saying "fathers don't
have babies." He said he met another man who has been fighting for custody
for more than a year.

"There was one other guy who had been fighting for a year," he said. "The
just wished me real good luck, they said, 'You're going to have your hands
full.'"

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244


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