Boy to vacation with German dad
Associated PressThe mother will get to view her 3-year-old on a Web cam, the billionaire father promises during a visitation hearing.
Published July 8, 2004
MIAMI - A German billionaire can take his 3-year-old son home for a four-week summer vacation despite the estranged wife's worries that the boy may never return to the United States, a judge decided Wednesday.
Alexander Otto and his wife, Carrie, filed separately for divorce in January and pledged as part of the two-day visitation hearing to try to work out an agreement on child support, alimony and property distribution.
Alexander Otto, 36, whose family owns Otto GmbH & Co., the world's largest mail-order company, asked for a six-week break with his son, Matthias. Circuit Judge Gerald Hubbart granted four weeks between July 10 and Aug. 15. "I plan to be his loving father. Mattie absolutely will be priority No. 1. I will spend all my time with him," Alexander Otto testified Tuesday as he described plans for trips to the beach, parks and playgrounds.
"Make sure that there is daily contact between your son and his mother," the judge told him.
"I will do my best," Alexander Otto said. He agreed to give his wife a Web cam-equipped computer and promised contact by either computer or telephone.
Witnesses for Carrie Otto, 33, said German courts do not respect an international treaty banning child abductions. Her attorneys also said the father should gradually build up to extended overnight visits with his son because he hasn't had any since his wife and son moved to suburban Pinecrest in April 2003.
The judge said it isn't as if the boy will be "with a virtual and complete stranger. I won't say that the wife doesn't have concerns about her child, but Mr. Otto has had a couple of opportunities to have gone away with his son."
Hubbart granted temporary custody of the boy to his mother and declared him a resident of Florida, borrowing treaty language from the Hague Convention on international child kidnapping.
The parents lived together for about five years before they married in 1994. Carrie Otto signed a prenuptial agreement awarding her $30-million in case of divorce, but her attorneys say the agreement is void because her husband concealed his assets.
Otto's family, estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth $8-billion, owns Crate & Barrel and the retailer Spiegel and is ranked as the second-largest Internet retailer behind Amazon.com.