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Tennessee Custody Case Divides Chinese Community

By Joyce Nishioka | AsianWeek
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Circuit Court Judge Robert Childers ruled on May 13 that Anna Mae would remain with Jerry and Louise Baker and terminated the parental rights of Shaoqiang “Jack” and Qin “Casey” Luo He.

But less than a week later, attorneys for the Hes filed a notice of appeal, possibly delaying the final decision by more than two years.

Who should raise Anna Mae? The Hes, a poor couple with a checkered past, who claim that cultural misunderstanding, a confusing legal system and underhanded tactics by the Bakers led them to sign over custody of their daughter? Or the Bakers, a middle-class Christian couple, with four biological children, who have gone bankrupt from their legal bills?

Surprisingly, the Chinese American community in Memphis is split on the matter, said Cai Ji, the public affairs director of the Greater Memphis United Chinese Association and a spokesperson for the Hes.

Jack He immigrated to the United States on a student visa to earn a doctorate in business at the University of Memphis. In 1998 a Chinese student accused him of sexual assault and the school dismissed him.

Since then, He has lived and worked in the United States illegally. Although he was acquitted on the sexual assault charges, he and his family still face possible deportation.

“The Chinese community is very divided because of the character issue,” Cai said. “Some people feel they have brought shame to the community. They have been portrayed as very despicable, but all they were trying to do was to survive, to make a living for the family.

“On the sexual harassment issue, he was acquitted in court, so that's not an issue, but people don't forgive you.”

Two Couples, Two Stories

Disagreements between the Bakers and the Hes started when Anna Mae was put into foster care shortly after her birth in 1999. The Hes contend they wanted a temporary home for Anna Mae while they sorted out their financial and legal problems and accuse the Bakers of intending to adopt their daughter from the beginning.

The Bakers, on the other hand, who had cared for 10 other children in the past, claim they took in Anna Mae as a foster child, but within the year the Hes asked them to adopt her.

During the three-month foster agreement, the Hes thought about sending Anna Mae to China to live with relatives, Cai said, but the Bakers convinced them to let her stay in the United States.

After the foster agreement expired, the Hes decided to continue the arrangement and grant custody to the Bakers. Cai said the Hes did so at the request of the Bakers, who told them that they needed to have custody of Anna Mae in order to put her on their health insurance plan.

After one year the Hes wanted their daughter back, but the Bakers resisted, Cai said. The couple filed a petition to terminate the Bakers' guardianship, but a juvenile court judge ruled in favor of the Bakers, citing the Hes' legal and financial problems.

In 2001, the Hes visited Anna Mae for her second birthday, but when they tried to take her out, the Bakers called the police, who ordered them to leave and stay away from the home.

Cai said the Hes were afraid to go to the Bakers' home. They didn't know they had a right to visit their daughter or that by Tennessee law if parents neglect to visit their child for four months, the child is considered abandoned. A week after the four-month period passed, Cai said, the Bakers filed papers to terminate the Hes' parental rights and, a year later in 2002, the Bakers were granted legal guardianship.

“To many of us, we feel this was trickery,” Cai said. “The Bakers used connections, knowledge of the court and a high powered attorney to manipulate the American system, to deny and destroy this Chinese couple.”

Lies and More Lies

But others see the Hes as anything but innocent victims. Larry Parrish, the Bakers' attorney, pointed out, “The Hes were not liked among Chinese people, particularly those on the University of Memphis campus. They had a hard time finding friends there.” Parrish also suggested the couple has a history of lying.

The Hes filed a suit against the husband of the woman who accused Jack He of sexually assaulting her, Parrish said. Casey He claimed the man kicked her in the stomach at a Chinese store in Memphis. But a witness, a physician from Hong Kong, testified in his deposition that Casey He was never touched.

Parrish called the Hes' allegation “pure unadulterated fabrication from the first word to the last word.”

“Because of the physician's testimony, the civil case, which was bogus from day one, was thrown out of court, and the criminal charges that they falsely brought against the husband … didn't even get to court. The DA threw them out.”

The lies continued, Parrish said. The Hes asked the Bakers to adopt Anna Mae after the initial three-month adoption agreement expired. But the Hes changed their minds, believing they needed to maintain their parental relationship to stay in the United States. After that, the Bakers considered Anna Mae their daughter.

And the Hes treated the Bakers as Anna Mae's parents, Parrish said. “The Hes are asking the Bakers to please, if they will, commit to send her to Christian schools. They express satisfaction that Aimee [the Bakers' biological daughter] was born [shortly after Anna Mae] so that Anna would have a sister to grow up with through life. And they are inquiring about her future.”

A year later when the Hes filed a petition to terminate the guardianship, Parrish said, the Bakers were devastated. Jerry Baker met with Jack He so they could come to an understanding. During the meeting, the two wrote a contract, in which He wrote, “We will continue the current agreement for the Bakers to raise Anna until she is 18 years old,” Parrish said.

At the custody trial, which began in February, that contract was brought in as evidence. Parrish said, “He immediately starts saying it was a ‘1' and not an '18.' Then he goes into this elaborate explanation about how Chinese people sometimes say ‘ones' … that the ‘8' was not an ‘8', it was an ‘s.'

“The fact that he would lie about it under oath and start lying about it again reinforces the fact that this was an 18-year-deal from day one.”

Fair or Biased?

Cai said that Judge Childers' decision was racially biased. Issues brought up during the trial included China's one-child policy, the country's poor living standards, the stereotype that Chinese girls are undervalued and suggestions that Confucian values encourage lying.

Moreover, Cai said, the judge mentioned that strange odors emanated from the Hes' dirty home as one point to qualify his decision that the Hes were unfit parents. The judge wrote in his decision that Jack He “engaged in a pattern of conduct marked by deceitfulness and dishonesty.”

“I feel very painful throughout the trial as a Chinese person,” Cai said. “Our philosophy of family values was brought up, our value of extended family, how people take care of each other's children.”

But Richard Gordon, Casey He's attorney, said there was no intentional bias, adding that “cultural issues affected the Hes' understanding of what was taking place [while Anna Mae was in the Bakers' care].”

Describing his client as very distraught, extremely depressed, sad, angry and determined to see this through, Gordon said that regardless of whatever agreement Jack He had made with the Bakers, Casey He had never been part of any negotiation.

“She has been unequivocally opposed to giving up her child. … In Tennessee if a mother wants to give up her child there is a procedure, which was not done in this case. You have to go to a judge and surrender your parental rights and then you have 10 days to change your mind.

“The record is clear that Mrs. He was never interested in letting her daughter be adopted.”

Cai said tactics used by the Bakers' lawyers amount to character assassination. Jack He works from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., six days a week, he said, while Casey stays home to take care of their two other children.

“They live in a one-bedroom apartment with minimal amenities, but nowhere close to what has been described by the judge,” Cai said.

“They had a dream and now it's shattered. They survived the last four or five years at the bottom of the barrel. They don't trust a lot of people.”