Dad in Japan custody battle thought wife would take kids
On February 12, 2009, Christopher Savoie received an e-mail from his ex-wife that he had feared would come.
About a month after their bitter divorce, in which Noriko Savoie promised as part of the agreement she wouldn't return to Japan with their children to live, she threatened to do just that.
"It's very difficult to watch kids becoming American and losing Japanese identity,'' Noriko Savoie wrote her ex-husband in the e-mail, according to Tennessee court documents. "I am at the edge of the cliff. I cannot hold it anymore if you keep bothering me.''
Now she is in Japan with the children. Christopher Savoie sits in a Japanese jail accused of trying to kidnap them.
He practically predicted it would end this way.
The couple, citizens of the United States and Japan, were married for 14 years and lived in Japan. But they came to the United States with 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca. They divorced in January 2009 after Christopher Savoie was unfaithful. Noriko Savoie was given custody of the children and agreed to remain in the United States.
During the divorce, Christopher Savoie was concerned that his ex-wife would move to Japan with the children. After receiving the threatening e-mail, he went to court to try to prevent that.
He pleaded with a judge in March to stop Noriko Savoie from being able to travel to Japan for summer vacation.
He knew if she took the children to Japan to live the deck would be stacked against him. Japanese law would recognize Noriko Savoie as the primary custodian and he might never see his children again.
Noriko Savoie told a judge the words in her e-mail were in the heat of the moment; she was angry that her ex-husband had just married the woman who caused their marriage to end.
"I was very, very -- at the peak of my frustration ..." Noriko Savoie told a judge, according to court transcripts. "He actually married three days before that e-mail. He remarried the person -- a woman whom he was having affair [with], so I was very depressed and -- but also angry."
Noriko Savoie was asked repeatedly in court if she would try to take the children and flee to Japan. Her answer was always no.
"I have never thought about taking children away from their father, never," she told the judge.
Christopher Savoie didn't believe her.
Their divorce had been rocky, both of them said. The court documents reveal bitter fights and mediations during the divorce. The two accused each other of sending harassing e-mails. They also fought over sending the kids to baseball, Scouts and other activities. Noriko Savoie accused him of not giving her enough money to take English language lessons or go to school so she could get a job. He accused her of not trying hard enough to enroll or find a place to live.
Despite those issues, Christopher Savoie said his only concern was making sure he wouldn't be separated from his children.
He knew trying to get the kids back would be "a futile effort" if Noriko Savoie did flee with the children, according to court documents.
He laid out in court a scenario similar to what he is facing.
"If she were to go to Japan with the children and with primary custodial rights, there's pretty much no doubt that I would have a very difficult time enforcing my rights to visitation should Noriko decide not to let the children see me," he said.
He said he'd have a hard time paying expensive legal fees because most of his money was tied up in his house, car and 401(k) after he gave Noriko Savoie more than $700,000 as part of the divorce settlement. With that money, he feared she'd be able to move and hide the children from him.
When appointed parental coordinators asked her if she planned to take the children to Japan, she hesitated and simply answered "I think the kids will be happy if I'm happy." The judge asked Noriko Savoie rhetorically whether she would be willing to put up money, essentially a bond, to ensure she'd return from Japan. She agreed, but was never asked to do so.
Judge James G. Martin III warned Noriko Savoie she would lose her alimony, education funds and other money if she fled with the children, before ruling that he believed she wouldn't abscond with them and allowed her to travel to Japan.
Noriko Savoie followed the court's rules and took the children on vacation and returned during the required time to the United States. But days later, she took the children back to Japan.
The court in the United States granted Christopher Savoie full custody after Noriko Savoie fled the country. But that court order means nothing in Japan, where courts generally favor mothers in custody disputes.
The couple is also still considered married in Japan, because they never divorced there, Japanese police said Wednesday. And, police said, the children are Japanese and have Japanese passports.
A 1980 Hague Convention standardized laws on international child abduction, but Japan is not a party to that agreement.
Christopher Savoie knew all this when he decided this week to go to Japan to get his children back.
He took the children as Noriko Savoie walked them to school Monday in Yanagawa, a rural town in southern Japan. He headed for the nearest U.S. consulate, in the city of Fukuoka on the Southern island of Kyushu, to try to obtain passports for the children, screaming at the guards to let him in the compound. He was steps away from the front gate but still standing on Japanese soil when he was arrested.
Christopher Savoie, who will be in jail for the next 10 days while Japanese officials sort out the situation, told CNN's Kyung Lah that he was scared and just wanted to see his children.
"I love you, Isaac, Rebecca," he said. "Your daddy loves you forever. I'll be patient and strong until the day comes that I can see you both again. I am very sorry that I can't be with you."
Though he had warned everyone this was going to happen, this time he could speak in certainties.
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He said that though he knows it might be a tough battle, it's one he will continue to vocalize.
"I want Americans to know what's happening to me," Christopher Savoie said in Japanese. "I didn't do anything wrong."
--
Now, for Noriko's side:
Friend: Japanese woman who took kids felt trapped
FRANKLIN, Tennessee (AP) -- A friend says Noriko Savoie felt trapped -- she was a Japanese citizen new to the U.S. whose American husband had just served her divorce papers.
Her disintegrating marriage likely would have ended with little notice had she not fled to Japan, where her ex-husband was arrested this week trying to get the children she took with her into the diplomatic protection of a U.S. consulate.
Noriko Savoie did not have court permission to bring the children to the country where they had spent most of their lives, and Christopher Savoie says he didn't do anything wrong when he tried to get them back.
Court records and conversations with a friend, Miiko Crafton, make it clear that Noriko Savoie was hurt and angry from the divorce and chafing at the cultural differences.
She had no income when she moved to the U.S. in June 2008, divorce court filings show, and appears to have been totally dependent on Christopher Savoie, who was still legally her husband but was involved with another woman.
Crafton, a native of Japan who befriended Noriko Savoie during her short time in Tennessee, said her friend tried to get a divorce while the couple still lived in Japan, but her husband had refused and later persuaded her to move to the U.S. with the children.
"Everything was provided so she could begin a new lifestyle, but right after that he gave her divorce papers," Crafton said. "So basically she was trapped."
Although financially stable -- she was awarded close to $800,000 in cash as well as other support in the divorce -- Noriko Savoie was not free to return to Japan. She was given primary custody of the children, but her ex-husband was also awarded time with them.
She felt mistreated by the courts and emotionally abused by her ex-husband, Crafton said.
In court, she accused Christopher Savoie of threatening to have her father jailed over a disagreement stemming from the sale of a car.
In a hostile e-mail from Christopher Savoie that was entered into the court record, he called her an "idiot" and accused her of "poisoning the children against me." He complained about the large cash payout she got and monthly support payments.
But Crafton said Noriko Savoie was trying to settle into life in Tennessee. For example, she tried to enroll in college.
"She was very positive, but she always looked sad," Crafton said. "It was a really, really sad situation."
Meanwhile, Christopher Savoie complained that she refused to let him see the children during appointed times, screened his calls with them and insulted him and argued with him in front of them.
And, according to court records, he had an overriding fear that she would take the children to Japan, where he thought he would have little legal recourse and might never be able to see them again.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent, almost always the mother, often gets sole custody. Divorced fathers typically have little access.
Christopher Savoie remarried in the month following the divorce, and Noriko Savoie wrote him an e-mail soon after, asking him to keep his new wife and her children away and stop criticizing their marriage.
"These things are effecting my life a lot," she wrote. "I need to stay healthy in order to stay here."
That e-mail became a key piece of evidence when Christopher Savoie unsuccessfully tried to convince the courts not to allow her to take the children to Japan on vacation.
She returned on July 30 as planned, but went back with the children just two weeks later.
Christopher Savoie was arrested by Japanese police on Monday as he tried to enter a U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Fukuoka with the 6- and 8-year-old children after snatching them away from their mother as they walked to school.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
He told CNN in an interview that he wants his children to know he loves them.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he said. "Children have the right to see both parents. It's very important for my children to know both parents."
Christopher Savoie had been granted full custody of the children by an American court after Noriko Savoie abducted them, and the courts here issued a warrant for her arrest on charges of custodial interference.
Crafton said she felt sorry for Christopher Savoie but did not approve of his actions.
"If he's really thinking of the kids, he shouldn't be doing some dramatic movie-type thing like snatching the kids," Crafton said. "He could have made other arrangements. He speaks Japanese very well and has Japanese citizenship."
--
And now, the new wife:
Video of his new wife talking about things. Notice how her facts are very different from the ones given everywhere else (ie, Noriko wanted to come to US for the divorce, even though Noriko wanted to do it in the US) and how they superimposed the Japanese battle flag over Noriko's face, so her face is red. Yeah, that's some Othering right there.
--
So let me get this straight...you, your wife, and your kids are all Japanese citizens (Savoie became a Japanese citizen, and Japan does not allow dual-citizenship past the age of 20, Noriko has permanent residency in the US, and the kids both have Japanese citizenship and lived almost all of their lives in Japan), you never bothered to get a Japanese divorce and in fact made your wife come to the US for the divorce when she would have done it in the US plus she thought the two of you were going to try to work things out, you cheated on her wife and served her divorce papers almost as soon as she landed, treated her like shit with things like not giving her money for English lessons, you tried to bar her going back to her home country even for visits, had custody changed retroactively, and then you literally snatch the kids from in front of her as she's taking them to school, and run for the embassy...of a country you are no longer a citizen of.
To me? It sounds like this is totally trying to play the American system because he knows he wouldn't get jack under the Japanese...and that maybe he doesn't really deserve jack. It seems like he was trying to take advantage of the American system, she saw what was happening, and outmaneuvered him.
The CNN articles are very slanted (they never mentioned until this last article that Savoie didn't get sole custody until after Noriko left with the kids; before that SHE had custody, or mention all of the grade-A a-hole behaviour he engaged in; plus that coloring job they did on her face), and reading between the lines....yeah. Noriko may technically have been in the wrong when she took her kids, but I can see why she did. Neither of them is "right" and he tried to do the exact same thing she did.
And he's a Japanese citizen now. That means he should have to play by Japanese rules. Suck it up.
On February 12, 2009, Christopher Savoie received an e-mail from his ex-wife that he had feared would come.
About a month after their bitter divorce, in which Noriko Savoie promised as part of the agreement she wouldn't return to Japan with their children to live, she threatened to do just that.
"It's very difficult to watch kids becoming American and losing Japanese identity,'' Noriko Savoie wrote her ex-husband in the e-mail, according to Tennessee court documents. "I am at the edge of the cliff. I cannot hold it anymore if you keep bothering me.''
Now she is in Japan with the children. Christopher Savoie sits in a Japanese jail accused of trying to kidnap them.
He practically predicted it would end this way.
The couple, citizens of the United States and Japan, were married for 14 years and lived in Japan. But they came to the United States with 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca. They divorced in January 2009 after Christopher Savoie was unfaithful. Noriko Savoie was given custody of the children and agreed to remain in the United States.
During the divorce, Christopher Savoie was concerned that his ex-wife would move to Japan with the children. After receiving the threatening e-mail, he went to court to try to prevent that.
He pleaded with a judge in March to stop Noriko Savoie from being able to travel to Japan for summer vacation.
He knew if she took the children to Japan to live the deck would be stacked against him. Japanese law would recognize Noriko Savoie as the primary custodian and he might never see his children again.
Noriko Savoie told a judge the words in her e-mail were in the heat of the moment; she was angry that her ex-husband had just married the woman who caused their marriage to end.
"I was very, very -- at the peak of my frustration ..." Noriko Savoie told a judge, according to court transcripts. "He actually married three days before that e-mail. He remarried the person -- a woman whom he was having affair [with], so I was very depressed and -- but also angry."
Noriko Savoie was asked repeatedly in court if she would try to take the children and flee to Japan. Her answer was always no.
"I have never thought about taking children away from their father, never," she told the judge.
Christopher Savoie didn't believe her.
Their divorce had been rocky, both of them said. The court documents reveal bitter fights and mediations during the divorce. The two accused each other of sending harassing e-mails. They also fought over sending the kids to baseball, Scouts and other activities. Noriko Savoie accused him of not giving her enough money to take English language lessons or go to school so she could get a job. He accused her of not trying hard enough to enroll or find a place to live.
Despite those issues, Christopher Savoie said his only concern was making sure he wouldn't be separated from his children.
He knew trying to get the kids back would be "a futile effort" if Noriko Savoie did flee with the children, according to court documents.
He laid out in court a scenario similar to what he is facing.
"If she were to go to Japan with the children and with primary custodial rights, there's pretty much no doubt that I would have a very difficult time enforcing my rights to visitation should Noriko decide not to let the children see me," he said.
He said he'd have a hard time paying expensive legal fees because most of his money was tied up in his house, car and 401(k) after he gave Noriko Savoie more than $700,000 as part of the divorce settlement. With that money, he feared she'd be able to move and hide the children from him.
When appointed parental coordinators asked her if she planned to take the children to Japan, she hesitated and simply answered "I think the kids will be happy if I'm happy." The judge asked Noriko Savoie rhetorically whether she would be willing to put up money, essentially a bond, to ensure she'd return from Japan. She agreed, but was never asked to do so.
Judge James G. Martin III warned Noriko Savoie she would lose her alimony, education funds and other money if she fled with the children, before ruling that he believed she wouldn't abscond with them and allowed her to travel to Japan.
Noriko Savoie followed the court's rules and took the children on vacation and returned during the required time to the United States. But days later, she took the children back to Japan.
The court in the United States granted Christopher Savoie full custody after Noriko Savoie fled the country. But that court order means nothing in Japan, where courts generally favor mothers in custody disputes.
The couple is also still considered married in Japan, because they never divorced there, Japanese police said Wednesday. And, police said, the children are Japanese and have Japanese passports.
A 1980 Hague Convention standardized laws on international child abduction, but Japan is not a party to that agreement.
Christopher Savoie knew all this when he decided this week to go to Japan to get his children back.
He took the children as Noriko Savoie walked them to school Monday in Yanagawa, a rural town in southern Japan. He headed for the nearest U.S. consulate, in the city of Fukuoka on the Southern island of Kyushu, to try to obtain passports for the children, screaming at the guards to let him in the compound. He was steps away from the front gate but still standing on Japanese soil when he was arrested.
Christopher Savoie, who will be in jail for the next 10 days while Japanese officials sort out the situation, told CNN's Kyung Lah that he was scared and just wanted to see his children.
"I love you, Isaac, Rebecca," he said. "Your daddy loves you forever. I'll be patient and strong until the day comes that I can see you both again. I am very sorry that I can't be with you."
Though he had warned everyone this was going to happen, this time he could speak in certainties.
advertisement
He said that though he knows it might be a tough battle, it's one he will continue to vocalize.
"I want Americans to know what's happening to me," Christopher Savoie said in Japanese. "I didn't do anything wrong."
--
Now, for Noriko's side:
Friend: Japanese woman who took kids felt trapped
FRANKLIN, Tennessee (AP) -- A friend says Noriko Savoie felt trapped -- she was a Japanese citizen new to the U.S. whose American husband had just served her divorce papers.
Her disintegrating marriage likely would have ended with little notice had she not fled to Japan, where her ex-husband was arrested this week trying to get the children she took with her into the diplomatic protection of a U.S. consulate.
Noriko Savoie did not have court permission to bring the children to the country where they had spent most of their lives, and Christopher Savoie says he didn't do anything wrong when he tried to get them back.
Court records and conversations with a friend, Miiko Crafton, make it clear that Noriko Savoie was hurt and angry from the divorce and chafing at the cultural differences.
She had no income when she moved to the U.S. in June 2008, divorce court filings show, and appears to have been totally dependent on Christopher Savoie, who was still legally her husband but was involved with another woman.
Crafton, a native of Japan who befriended Noriko Savoie during her short time in Tennessee, said her friend tried to get a divorce while the couple still lived in Japan, but her husband had refused and later persuaded her to move to the U.S. with the children.
"Everything was provided so she could begin a new lifestyle, but right after that he gave her divorce papers," Crafton said. "So basically she was trapped."
Although financially stable -- she was awarded close to $800,000 in cash as well as other support in the divorce -- Noriko Savoie was not free to return to Japan. She was given primary custody of the children, but her ex-husband was also awarded time with them.
She felt mistreated by the courts and emotionally abused by her ex-husband, Crafton said.
In court, she accused Christopher Savoie of threatening to have her father jailed over a disagreement stemming from the sale of a car.
In a hostile e-mail from Christopher Savoie that was entered into the court record, he called her an "idiot" and accused her of "poisoning the children against me." He complained about the large cash payout she got and monthly support payments.
But Crafton said Noriko Savoie was trying to settle into life in Tennessee. For example, she tried to enroll in college.
"She was very positive, but she always looked sad," Crafton said. "It was a really, really sad situation."
Meanwhile, Christopher Savoie complained that she refused to let him see the children during appointed times, screened his calls with them and insulted him and argued with him in front of them.
And, according to court records, he had an overriding fear that she would take the children to Japan, where he thought he would have little legal recourse and might never be able to see them again.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent, almost always the mother, often gets sole custody. Divorced fathers typically have little access.
Christopher Savoie remarried in the month following the divorce, and Noriko Savoie wrote him an e-mail soon after, asking him to keep his new wife and her children away and stop criticizing their marriage.
"These things are effecting my life a lot," she wrote. "I need to stay healthy in order to stay here."
That e-mail became a key piece of evidence when Christopher Savoie unsuccessfully tried to convince the courts not to allow her to take the children to Japan on vacation.
She returned on July 30 as planned, but went back with the children just two weeks later.
Christopher Savoie was arrested by Japanese police on Monday as he tried to enter a U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Fukuoka with the 6- and 8-year-old children after snatching them away from their mother as they walked to school.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
He told CNN in an interview that he wants his children to know he loves them.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he said. "Children have the right to see both parents. It's very important for my children to know both parents."
Christopher Savoie had been granted full custody of the children by an American court after Noriko Savoie abducted them, and the courts here issued a warrant for her arrest on charges of custodial interference.
Crafton said she felt sorry for Christopher Savoie but did not approve of his actions.
"If he's really thinking of the kids, he shouldn't be doing some dramatic movie-type thing like snatching the kids," Crafton said. "He could have made other arrangements. He speaks Japanese very well and has Japanese citizenship."
--
And now, the new wife:
Video of his new wife talking about things. Notice how her facts are very different from the ones given everywhere else (ie, Noriko wanted to come to US for the divorce, even though Noriko wanted to do it in the US) and how they superimposed the Japanese battle flag over Noriko's face, so her face is red. Yeah, that's some Othering right there.
--
So let me get this straight...you, your wife, and your kids are all Japanese citizens (Savoie became a Japanese citizen, and Japan does not allow dual-citizenship past the age of 20, Noriko has permanent residency in the US, and the kids both have Japanese citizenship and lived almost all of their lives in Japan), you never bothered to get a Japanese divorce and in fact made your wife come to the US for the divorce when she would have done it in the US plus she thought the two of you were going to try to work things out, you cheated on her wife and served her divorce papers almost as soon as she landed, treated her like shit with things like not giving her money for English lessons, you tried to bar her going back to her home country even for visits, had custody changed retroactively, and then you literally snatch the kids from in front of her as she's taking them to school, and run for the embassy...of a country you are no longer a citizen of.
To me? It sounds like this is totally trying to play the American system because he knows he wouldn't get jack under the Japanese...and that maybe he doesn't really deserve jack. It seems like he was trying to take advantage of the American system, she saw what was happening, and outmaneuvered him.
The CNN articles are very slanted (they never mentioned until this last article that Savoie didn't get sole custody until after Noriko left with the kids; before that SHE had custody, or mention all of the grade-A a-hole behaviour he engaged in; plus that coloring job they did on her face), and reading between the lines....yeah. Noriko may technically have been in the wrong when she took her kids, but I can see why she did. Neither of them is "right" and he tried to do the exact same thing she did.
And he's a Japanese citizen now. That means he should have to play by Japanese rules. Suck it up.
That is NOT the point. This is not OUR story.
This man never abused anyone. The things that he did were stupid, but honestly, that is what happens in life. It's not the end of the world. She just seems weak. Not given enough money for English lessons? Taking the kids on vacation? WTF ever! Grow up and realize that this is how it went down. I wish to God someone would try to take my kids away from me because of something like that.
I don't sympathize with him or her, but I know that what she did was the ultimate wrong. It is practically written in stone that he will not see those kids if they stay in Japan.
Uh huh.
Noriko Savoie accused him of not giving her enough money to take English language lessons or go to school so she could get a job. He accused her of not trying hard enough to enroll or find a place to live.
From reading the article and hearing her complaints, she seems like a weak-minded person. Not to say that he is Einstein or the most honorable man around or anything, but she seems pretty weak.
I am not saying that the husband is a great man, but she just seems like she needs a stronger personally constutition or something.