nbc6.net – News – Man Wanted After Taking Children To Cuba In Custody Dispute
Authorities Find Children, Take Them To Mother

POSTED: 11:19 pm EDT August 9, 2005
UPDATED: 5:34 pm EDT August 10, 2005

MIAMI — A Miami Beach man is wanted after he took his three children and set sail to Cuba.

Images: Custody Battle Ends With Man, Kids Sailing To Cuba

The father, Mel Dressler, admitted to NBC 6 that he violated an order from a Miami judge, but said he unfairly lost custody and wants what is best for his children, NBC 6′s Jeff Burnside reported.

The opposing attorney said that kidnapping one’s own children is reprehensible.

“Even if he goes to jail for the rest of his life, he’s already won,” Dressler’s wife, Elise d’Hauthuille, said.

D’Hauthuille said that Dressler, her husband of three years, disappeared in July with his three children from a previous marriage. FeedRoom

Man Takes Kids, Sails To Cuba

D’Hauthuille said that a week later, Dressler called to say he had taken his own children and sailed from Miami to Cuba to avoid a U.S. court order to return them to his ex-wife, in the last desperate act of a four-year battle.

“I couldn’t stand by. My husband has the patience of ten men, and he’s proved it over the last four years. Because I wouldn’t have been able to last a month,” d’Hauthuille said.

In a telephone interview from his sailboat in the Caribbean, Dressler called the situation “painful.”

“All I can say is that it’s … I’m sorry, I’m choking up. It’s just, it’s devastating,” Dressler said. “Sometimes you have to do something that appears to be completely crazy or desperate to try to get yourself, you know, in a better position. So, obviously, it may get darker for me before it gets brighter.”

Once Dressler, who is Canadian, reached Cuba, he checked in with authorities. However, Dressler said that last Sunday, while Cuban authorities met with him on land, they removed his children from the sailboat.

The children were flown to Montreal, where their stepfather was waiting to drive them to their mother in Philadelphia.

“I mean, we were hugging and kissing and swimming and, you know, it was … it’s very difficult,” Dressler said.

The children are now with their mother and stepfather in Philadelphia, even though Dressler insists it is a harmful household.

The stepfather’s attorney said Dressler “should be in jail.”

There is a warrant for Dressler’s arrest. Dressler remains in the Bahamas while he figures out his next move.
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