When a Serbian man in California gave his work computer to an office technician last July, it prompted a chain of events that have stripped him and his wife of their kids and sparked fury in his home country at the state's child protective services system. Among about 5,000 personal digital photographs on the Stockton resident's hard drive, the technician noticed a few dozen pictures of the man's two naked children. He reported the pictures to the sheriff's office.
The father, a 20-year resident of the U.S., and his wife were arrested briefly in June on suspicion of child pornography-related charges and released after prosecutors viewed the photos. The San Joaquin County district attorney's office said it had no plan to file any charges unless new evidence came to light.
But the children, ages 8 and 5, who are dual Serbian-U.S. citizens, were placed into protective custody, then foster care, where they remain seven months later.
"Both the San Joaquin district attorney's office and this office declined prosecution of the parents, concluding that the photographs were actually taken by one of the children," U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner wrote in the letter obtained by the AP.
Yet San Joaquin County's Child Protective Services agency has refused the couple's requests to return their children, saying there is now evidence that the little girl was molested by the father.
CPS produced a videotaped interview with the 5-year-old girl to make a case that the father had inappropriately touched her, said an attorney for the father, Robert Powell. He said the questions were ambiguous and that the father's conduct amounted to routine contact between a parent and young child, such as drying her off with a bath towel.
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