Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - May 2, 2006
Sara Olkon, solkon@MiamiHerald.com
"I thought my son was going to get AIDS and die," the soft-spoken defendant said in court Tuesday, on the sixth day of her trial.
After losing primary custody of her son in 2001 to her ex-husband, MacDonald, 50, snatched her son from North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek, then fled to Costa Rica for nine months.
She faces a third-degree felony charge of interfering with custody and a misdemeanor of violating a restraining order. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines.
Prosecutors say she made up a series of lies in order to win custody, including that her son was being molested by his father's lover.
The boy, whose name is being withheld by The Miami Herald because of his age, testified during trial that his mom encouraged him to lie so they could be together.
MacDonald's attorney, David Bogenschutz, tells a different story.
He portrays MacDonald as a loving and concerned mother whose fear of AIDS and exasperation with the judicial system led her to desperate actions.
But on Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Adriana Alcalde attempted to blow up some of his defense arguments during cross-examination.
Alcalde forced Caren MacDonald to admit to jurors that she knew that her ex-husband, Chuck MacDonald, was HIV-positive when she married him in May 1988.
Their son was born in December of 1989.
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