@Jeff Steel The only legal stuff I was thinking of was whether F relinquished his parental rights and whether Rachel forged his signature to gov't documents permitting her to renounce D's citizenship and move her to another country. Because if F didn't relinquish his parental rights and had visitation, Rachel couldn't relocate D without his okay (based on U.S. law). If Rachel also forged F's signature to said documents then F would only have to file suit in home country to regain custody of D and also get Rachel thrown in federal prison for a number of years. But since D is 18, courts would just say that she's an adult and no one has custody of her and she's free to live where she chooses. Again, this based upon my knowledge of U.S. law. So in essence, Rachel should have never been able to take D out of the country without F's consent. Apologies for what seems to be quite the rant and if the team isn't from the U.S. then it's not expected that you would have any knowledge of child custody laws here. You've still made an entertaining game with excellent renders and situations.
Oh, I got you. I’m from California but officially D was born in and MC lives in a country other than the US. As for whatever legal process happened 10 years earlier, MC just folded and signed whatever paperwork was necessary.
I suppose if it were the US, and there was some malfeasance, then this would apply:
The International Parental
Kidnapping Crime Act 1993 (IPKCA) is a United States federal law. ... This law makes it a federal
crime to remove a
child from the United States or retain a
childoutside the United States with the intent to obstruct a parent's custodial rights, or to attempt to do so (See 18 U.S.C. § 1204.)
In addition, that statute is rarely used per the most recent Wikipedia article:
In 1999 it was reported that, in five years just 62 indictments and 13 convictions resulted from thousands of international child abduction cases of abductions. The Justice Department said it rarely pursues prosecutions under the IPKCA, because its prosecutors assume a U.S. indictment will prevent children from being returned.
My understanding is some of this authority has been passed to the states and thus the local district attorney level,though I could be wrong about that. Maybe it is just California lawmthat allows the DA to get involved in cases involving kids taken out of country.
But my understanding is that MC just caved in 10 years ago, did not fight the issue, and presumably either signed the necessary paperwork in his country, or did nothing and thus let Rachel take off. The narrative of MC being “cowardly” in that moment supports that he caved and Rachel did not do criminal malfeasance.
