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David van Blarigan found another way to try to take back his freedom. When he got off the plane in Jamaica, the escort team from Tranquility Bay was late meeting him. That gave him time to call a friend and neighbor, Neil Aschemeyer, who is also an administrative-law judge. Aschemeyer got in touch with Robert Hutchins, head of the Alameda County district attorney's child-abduction unit. And Hutchins went to court to petition for David's release. For the moment, he isn't bringing criminal charges, but he regards the teenager's abduction as kidnapping. "When they sent this so-called escort service to pick up their boy, they took him against his will," Hutchins says. "That's kidnapping." Normally, a parent cannot kidnap his own child, but Hutchins argues that by giving Tranquility Bay the power to "restrain, control and detain" their son for a year, they effectively handed over custody of him, which, he says, California case law prohibits. Hutchins also contends that David's brief examination at Brightway was a sham and that his parents had already signed a yearlong contract with Tranquility Bay.
The Van Blarigans, for their part, say they were stunned to be hauled into court. "I was scratching my head," Jim van Blarigan says of the day Hutchins' office served him with papers. "I asked, 'What do you mean, kidnapping my [own] son?" They love their son, they insist, and are only doing their duty. "We as parents made a choice to send our son to a boarding school for his benefit," says Sue van Blarigan. "We're being challenged on whether we have that right as parents." If David's suit prevails, he will be placed not with his parents but with the Alameda County family court. "Under the family code, minors have rights," says Hutchins. Of course, parents do too. The question before the judge is where a parent's rights end and a child's begin.
--Reported by Sylvester Monroe/Treasure Beach and James Willwerth/Los Angeles