David Goldman: a study in courage, dignity

Once they were home, David Goldman laid down the law for his son. "Your job is to be a kid," he told him in no uncertain terms.



And my job is to make sure you do your job."

Sometimes you just have to be stern.

Ten days ago, Sean Goldman returned to a familiar house in Tinton Falls, the only house he knew the first four years of his life. The house sits on a hill overlooking the Swimming River. Now 9, Sean remembered the pool in the backyard and all the trees and the river at the bottom of the hill, where they still keep the canoe. Also, he remembered the cat. First night back, he jumped up on Sean's bed, curled up next to him and fell asleep, purring loudly.
Sean seems to be settling in nicely, says his father, currently the happiest man in three counties. "He's home, he's happy, he's safe," says David, "Now I can begin to be who I'm supposed to be."

For the past 5 1/2 years, David Goldman has been living among us as an impostor. His old friends, the ones who knew him to be full of life, barely recognized him. As one of them once put it, he has "just looked blank" since the day his former wife, Bruna, abducted the boy and took him to Brazil.

That was June 2004. Since then Goldman has made the trip down to Brazil no fewer than 13 times, trying every which way to get his son back. He had two attorneys working the case, one here, one in Brazil.

He also had hostile former in-laws conspiring with Bruna's new Brazilian husband to keep him from seeing his son, from communicating with his son. His tormentors were affluent people with political clout. David was an American in a foreign land, on his own.

"He was Don Quixote," says his father, Barry Goldman.

Yet David kept going down there and coming back emotionally bloodied. He was getting his teeth kicked in, over and over, despite the fact that the law was so obviously on his side — U.S. law, Brazilian law, international law.

Then Bruna died after giving birth to another child in August 2008, and it appeared the law of common sense if not common decency might kick in. It didn't. Things got worse. Only now David had a few people listening to him.

Shouting in the dark

For four years, no one could hear him. He was shouting in the dark. Meanwhile, his father says, David wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping. Ellie Goldman, David's mother, was terribly worried. So was his sister, Leslie.

"My brother lost the love of his life and what he thought was the perfect family," Leslie once recalled. "The first two years, David couldn't be around my children. It was too difficult for him."

In late September 2008, David's friends began pursuing other avenues. On their Web site — bringseanhome.org — they collected more than 55,000 signatures on a petition. Media interest increased, ever so slightly.
Finally, a reporter from the local ABC affiliate, friend of a friend, talked his bosses into giving him 30 seconds on the 11 o'clock news. The "Today Show" picked up on this and brought Goldman in for a brief interview a few days later. In early October 2008, the Asbury Park Press began tracking the story.

Fifteen months ago, David Goldman was the saddest man I had ever met. His eyes downcast, he would recount his nightmare in a monotone, his voice rising only occasionally to let out some of the steam.

"It was such a blow to him," says his father. "He didn't sleep, didn't eat. He wasn't interested in anything but getting Sean back.

"He just kept pounding away, pounding away. Just the way he did it, I couldn't do that. He controlled himself. He never let the anger get the best of him. I tell you, I couldn't do that. He didn't get that from me.

"But now he's starting to come back. He's making his comeback. He looks like himself again. You know how they say pregnant women look like they're glowing? Well, since he got Sean back, David looks like he's glowing."

Barry Goldman is currently the second happiest man in three counties.

"As happy as we are to have our grandson back," he says, "we have our son back too, and that's just about as important. For all those years he was different, like somebody who had a sour stomach or something. He never looked happy. He couldn't get this off his mind."

David Goldman couldn't talk about anything else. He was completely focused on what he calls "the biggest mission of my life."

"I had to continue to work," he says. "I had to continue to live.

"You move forward just because time doesn't stop. Time won't let you stop. You wake up every morning and you're still alive.

"People got a glimpse of what I was going through over the last year. They got to look through that window for a year, and people told me they got burnt out just in that one year. The first four years I was on my own."

Man on a mission

Over the last year, he has been tireless. He would go on any TV show that would have him, even the sleazy ones. They "have good penetration in Brazil," he would say about the show when you asked if he knew what he was getting himself into. He would consent to any interview, even the ones that involved hosts who never do their homework and ask ridiculous questions. Didn't matter, he was on a mission.

He traveled back and forth, to New York, to Washington, meeting with anybody and everybody, sleeping on the train, eating on the run.

How did he manage to hold it together? You have to wonder.

"And to do it with such grace," says Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. "He never lashed out. He never let his anger get the best of him."

Smith went down to Brazil with Goldman last February. Goldman finally got to see his son that trip . . . finally, after 4 1/2 years. Smith saw the genuine affection between father and son. He saw how the in-laws and the Brazilian husband tried to disrupt the court-ordered visitation.

Smith also went down with Goldman this last time, right before Christmas. He and Goldman were standing in a second-story window watching the final indignity on Christmas Eve, watching as this 9-year-old boy was marched down the street to the U.S. consulate, through the cameramen and the photographers.

"David got very emotional, as you can imagine," says Smith. "He said 'They're hurting my son. Why are they hurting my son?'

"Their lawyer told a CBS reporter they wanted to do that just to show Americans how this boy was being ripped from his family."

This was consistent with their behavior throughout the ordeal. Then again, it was never really their ordeal. This was David Goldman's ordeal. He's the one who never lost sight of his mission, who never stopped being consumed by the love he had for his child.

Now they are back in the house on the hill overlooking the river.

MORE ON TV: "Dateline NBC" will air a two-hour report on the Goldman case tonight starting at 8 p.m. on NBC stations.


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