Source: http://www.seattlepi.com
Updated 09:25 a.m., Thursday, October 13, 2011
SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A lawsuit against a Tennessee family that sent an adopted young boy back to Russia has been scheduled for trial early next year.
A motions hearing scheduled for Oct. 27, however, could end the litigation, according to the Shelbyville Times-Gazette (http://bit.ly/mQ8IZY ).
An adoption agency, the World Association for Children and Parents, filed the lawsuit after Nancy Hansen put then- 7-year-old Artyom Savelyev alone on an airline flight to Moscow in April 2010. She sent with him a note from her daughter and Artyom’s adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, which said the boy was violent and she no longer wanted to keep him.
The boy was placed in a Russian orphanage two months later, according to the U.S. adoption agency.
The act sparked international outrage. Russian authorities barred U.S. citizens from adopting children — a ban that was lifted in June of this year.
Attorneys for the Renton, Wash.-based adoption agency said they filed the lawsuit because no one was investigating claims that the Hansens abandoned and endangered the child.
Bedford County authorities said when the child was sent back that there was no evidence that a crime had occurred in local jurisdiction and no charges could be filed.
If the lawsuit is not settled by the end of this year, a trial date of it was scheduled for Jan. 3, 2012, in Bedford County Circuit Court.
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Information from: Shelbyville Times-Gazette, http://www.t-g.com
