NEW YORK, June 11. /TASS/. The family of Bogdana Osipova, a Russian national jailed in the US for kidnapping her own children, lacks money to pay her American lawyers’ fees, Bogdana’s mother Yuliana Filipyuk told TASS.
"It’s no secret that lawyers’ fees are super high in the United States and we certainly don’t have money to pay them," the mother said. She pointed out that a third team of lawyers currently represented her daughter’s interests. The first team, which had been paid in advance, "lost the most important files, Bogdana’s cell phone and original documents containing evidence of domestic violence on the part of Bogdana’s ex-husband Brian Mobley," Filipyuk added.
On June 6, a US federal court in Wichita, Kansas, sentenced Osipova to 84 months in a federal prison for "unlawfully taking her daughter to Russia and demanding money before allowing the American father to have custody of the girl." "The court also ruled that Bogdana pay more than $18,000 to Mobley to cover his lawyers’ fees," Osipova’s mother noted.
Osipova’s support group is now trying to raise funds to help her pay her lawyers’ fees. "We are very grateful to the people who are trying to help us but unfortunately, there is still not enough money," the mother noted.
Osipova case
Bogdana Osipova, referred to by her husband’s name Mobley in US court documents, holds both Russian and American citizenship. She has three underage children, among them younger girls from her ex-spouse Brian Mobley. The US authorities accuse Osipova of taking their elder daughter to Russia without her ex-husband’s permission in 2014. At the time, the woman was pregnant but divorce proceedings had already begun. The pair’s youngest daughter was born in Russia the same year, after that the divorce was finalized. A US court decided that both children should live with their father, while a Russian court determined that Russia should be their place of residence and the father was ordered to pay alimony.
FBI agents detained Osipova on September 28, 2017 in Wichita, Kansas, where she had arrived to sort out the child custody issue. She filed a suit at the local family court to contest the decision of the father being awarded full custody. The court accepted the claim and announced a date for a hearing, but two days later FBI agents arrested the woman in relation to a criminal charge that had been pressed by her former husband.
During the case hearings in the Wichita Court, Osipova agreed to bring the younger children back to the US expecting to be freed later, however, a Russian court barred the children from leaving the country in their best interest. The girls are currently living in Russia with a guardian, Osipova’s aunt.