Mom Kidnapped Son, Feared Dad ' Turning Him Gay'

by Fidel Ortega, 365Gay.com Miami Bureau
May 3, 2006 - 12:01 am ET
(Miami, Florida) A woman has told a Florida court that she kidnapped her 11-year old son and fled the country because she believed her former husband was turning the boy gay.
Caren MacDonald is accused of custody interference. She took the boy from a Ft. Lauderdale school in 2001 and went to Costa Rica. They remained there for four years but was arrested by U.S. Customs agents in June 2002 in Houston as she disembarked from an airplane that had arrived from Costa Rica.
The boy is now 16 and lives in Colorado with his father.
If convicted MacDonald could face up to five years in prison.
She said that she and her husband were married in 1988. The following year she became pregnant and the couple divorced in 1997.
It was at that time he came out and began a relationship with another man. To protect the identity of the child the names of the boy, his father and partner are not being published.
MacDonald and her husband fought for custody of the boy. During the dispute a court ordered psychiatrist testified that MacDonald was unstable and a judge awarded sole custody to the father. MacDonald was ordered to have no contact with the boy.
During her testimony in the criminal case MacDonald attempted to portray her ex-husband and his partner as sexual predators.
''I didn't understand how somebody could be straight and then be gay,'' MacDonald said.
She also accused the partner of massaging the boy on his buttocks several times, an allegation she also had made at the custody hearing. But last week the boy testified that there had been no inappropriate behavior and that his mother has forced him to lie at the custody hearing about being molested.