A number of interesting questions have arisen in the comments to yesterday's post about the He custody case. In that post, I noted that the He family's troubles began when Shiaoqiang He was accused of sexual assault while doing graduate work at the University of Memphis. Readers have expressed skepticism about the family's commitment to their child, and about whether a link can fairly be made between the accusations that launched the Hes' troubles and the loss of their child several years later. Some of those questions should be answered--and perhaps others will be raised--by this 2002 USA Today report, which explains in some detail how He came to be charged with sexual assault by a fellow student and how, soon after those charges were made, they signed their daughter over into foster care:

in 1998, when Casey was pregnant with Anna Mae, her husband was charged with assaulting a fellow student. He and the student, a Chinese woman named Xiaojun Qi (pronounced Key), went to a computer lab alone; a week later Qi went to school officials, displayed bruises and said Mister He caused them during a sexual assault.

Mister He vehemently denies the allegation. He says he left the lab feeling uncomfortable after the woman asked him for a $500 loan. But the university dismissed him, his income from the university vanished and his student visa hung on his collegiate appeal.

On Thanksgiving in 1998, the Hes left their one-bedroom apartment and went to the grocery store. They were attacked by several men, and Casey was knocked down. That night she began suffering vaginal bleeding. Her condition worsened until doctors finally, in January, delivered Anna Mae by C-section, one month premature.

With a $12,000 hospital bill, a criminal assault charge and a continuing legal fight to try to get reinstated at the university, the Hes sought help in caring for their baby. Friends at their church suggested a local adoption agency.

Mid-South Christian Services agreed to place the baby in a foster home for three months.

[...]

The Bakers live in a five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot home in the Davies Plantation area east of town. Their $414,000 house sits on more than an acre of rolling Tennessee hills. There are colorful play sets in the well-groomed backyard. Inside there is a media room with surround sound and a 53-inch TV, a Jacuzzi and a central vacuum system.

The Bakers began caring for Anna Mae on Feb. 23, 1999, and the Hes say they visited their daughter at least once a week. When the three months ended, they still were not able to care for Anna Mae. Mid-South Christian Services could no longer handle their case because the agency's supervision is limited to 90 days in temporary custody cases. So the two couples negotiated the next step on their own.

The Bakers refuse to discuss the matter on advice from their lawyer, Larry Parrish. They say that publicity will only make the child's situation more difficult and painful. But according to the Hes, the Bakers said they would continue to care for Anna Mae but that they needed legal custody to enroll her on their health insurance. Mister He says his wife signed over custody on June 3, only after assurances that they could take Anna Mae back at any time.

If this report is accurate, the charges against He were of the "he said / she said" variety, but he was expelled from the university nonetheless. I'll dig about for more on that front, and readers should feel free to do so as well and post their findings.

Meantime, I'll note that numerous other news reports stress that unfamiliarity with the American legal system and language barriers (in Casey's case) played a large role in the Hes' decision to give legal custody to the Bakers; the consensus seems to be that they had no idea what it meant to do that, and no idea how hard it would be to get their daughter back once they had.

UPDATE: Voluntarily in China has been covering the case in detail, and the comments sections have been busy.

Ugh. This story is so upsetting. However things get twisted, what you can't get around is that this child has been separated from her natural parents for all the wrong reasons. My heart goes out to the Hes, who have been put through an outrageous ordeal, and to their little girl, who certainly is the one who suffers the most as a result of this nonsense. I hope that on appeal the long, culturally insensitive string of wrongs will be righted.

Since per the story the child has been with the foster parents since she was a couple of months old, it's hard to see how she has 'suffered' all that much as at this point she probably sees them as more her real parents. But the whole case has an unseemly air, and because the parents have not been deemed unfit to raise their two other kids, everything considered they should give the girl back to her biological parents. And then send them all packing.

After going through these links, I think the first impression of "grad student wrongly accused of sexual harrasment, loses career and daughter" is misleading.

Firstly, some facts about the the sexual harassment case: the accuser is a married chinese woman. She actually accused Mr He of trying to rape her and she did have bruises on her. Indeed, she waited a week until her husband came back from a trip and washed all her clothes, which led to the lack of additional evidence, but that doesn't seem so strange. Mr He's story, that she accused him because he wouldn't lend $500 to her seems stranger. Also note that there apperantly was enough base to prosecute this case and for the jury to deliberate for 8 hours. The accuser's statement is available through some of the links but unfortunately I wasn't able to read it since it is in chinese.

Indeed Mr. He seemed to be placed in a catch 22 situation where he wasn't allowed to leave the country but was stripped of his stipend and wasn't allowed to work legally. However, I am beginning to wonder if his insistence on a jury trial was really because he wanted truth to come out or because he actually wanted to prolong this situation to avoid deportation.

If you read the judge's decision you see that Mr & Mrs. He actually considered adoption (not foster care) for AMH before she was born. After reading the decision, it does seem that they placed a higher priority on staying in the U.S. than on keeping AMH. (Especially telling is an informal summary of possible options written by Mr. He
in his handwriting to the foster father, in which Mr. He seems perfectly willing to let AMH stay in the foster care until she's 18.

There are also these minor issues which reflect poorly on the He's credibility: Mrs. He obtained a visa under false pretenses since she wasn't married to Mr. He, and Mr. He actually tried to obtain a visa to an additional different woman claiming she was married to him.

Actually, the judge claims that Mr. He wasn't sure he was AMH's father and asked for a DNA test (although Mr. He claims the foster parents forced him to do this test).

I think anonimous is getting carried away by unimportant details in the narrative the judge is trying to sell.

Even if the He's obtained a visa under false pretenses, even if they behaved opportunistically by trying to prolong their stay in this country (which is an unfair inference in my opinion), the judge was way out of line in severing their parental rights. Just because the He's behaved strategically, should they have all of their parental rights terminated?

Consider this: In the American legal system, except for Tennessee I guess, there is usually a heavy legal presumption in favor of the biological parents. Biological parents have kidnapped their children from an adopted family, escaped to different states, blackmailed the adopted family, disobeyed court orders to return the child, and STILL kept some form of their parental rights!

Given this standard, there's no reason the He's should lose their rights.

For me personally, the question of whether Mr. He actually committed the attempted rape, and whether he had a genuine interest in raising his own daughter is more important than the question of the law. I find it very hard to sympathize with someone who uses his daughter as a tool for his personal interests, regardless of whether the law is on his side or not.

Regarding the law, I don't understand these matters fully, but apperantly the He's did sign a document transferring custody of their daughter to the foster parents. Thus, their case rests on their claim that they didn't understand what they were signing due to language/cultural barriers. The judge didn't buy this claim because Mr. He has studied in the U.S. and has no problem with English, and the He's had access to several laywers they could have consulted in this matter if they wanted to.