Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and a court system gang up to discriminate against a foreign parent…

Documented: June 2, 2006

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In September of 1989, I met Kyoko Oda while she was studying for the TOEFL exam at the University of Michigan. In November, she told me that money was tight and would have to return to Japan.  Just before Christmas I proposed and she accepted. Then, claiming to have to attend something she called "wife school" she went back for about a year. Although the first of many things I am now skeptical of, I assumed such a thing as "wife school" was a cultural difference, and never suspected that my bride-to-be would ever try to deceive me.

We were married in Tokyo in January 1991, and in retrospect, I suppose I should have been suspicious right away. Within minutes of our civil marriage, she demanded control of all the finances. Then in June, on our honeymoon in the Hawaiian Islands, she began to insistently demand that I buy her jewelry and went into temper tantrums over various things.  But I was a newlywed.  I shrugged it off, again thinking there were just cultural differences we needed to resolve and that she was feeling anxiety over leaving her country. 

We returned to the states and started our married life living close by my family in Michigan. Temper tantrums now turned into rages, which I especially remember at the major holidays. Kyoko would insist we make plans to do something so she could avoid seeing my family. If I didn't agree, her anger became uncontrollable.  One year just before Christmas, she simply left for Japan.  Alone.  Again I shrugged it all off, thinking she was just spoiled or maybe missing her own family.  But her methods of getting her way started to worry me.

Kyoko disliked Michigan intensely, so in 1997 I agreed to move to Oregon, where I would also build a house I had been designing for almost 20 years. This was about the same time she was pregnant with our son Takoda Weed (aka Tei Oda). 

In Oregon, we purchased a house that was to become a rental after our new house was completed. At first, her parents were going to help us with a gift to pay for about 2/3 of it.  This turned into a kind of three-way partnership, and finally into a loan.  I was busy constructing our new house, and she was not working, so she arranged the entire thing.  I trusted that she had our joint best interests in mind, and we made a considerable investment in upgrades.  But soon after, we ended up selling it, returning the money to her parents, and moving into an apartment, where we lived when our daughter Tiana Weed (aka Kiku Oda) was born on March 18, 2001.  Her “parents' money” ended up in a U.S. bank account with her and her mother's name on it, which her father did not even know existed.

Just before moving to Oregon, Kyoko quit her job as a flight attendant with Northwest airlines.  But she would still spend anywhere from 3 -6 months a year in Japan, now using the house construction as an excuse to stay away. In 2001, just prior to being completed I moved everything into the new house. Unfortunately, due to contractor issues, the kitchen countertops did not get finished before she returned home in July.  She became furious, and barely a month after returning, she packed her things and returned to Japan for another 3 months, after just spending most of the summer there.  I came to the realization that something was terribly wrong with our relationship and that we needed help.  This couldn't just be cultural. [This link and later one added by webmaster.]

We finally agreed to go get counseling in 2002.  I just wanted a stable marriage and wanted to work together to raise our two children  But I thought she was showing symptoms of having bipolar disorder and believed that she had a problem telling the truth. The counselors said that her family likely raised her that way, and that she would be a long time healing, if ever.  I was told the lying was a habit that was very difficult to reverse.  Her rages were a defense mechanism she would set off if I got too close to discovering an un-truth. Bottom line was that I could no longer trust Kyoko or anything she told me.   Things spiraled down to the point I could literally not eat food that Kyoko had prepared.

By this time she was making constant threats of divorce and moving out. I felt I had no choice but to get out of this relationship. I decided it was best for my children if they could be raised (at least part time) in an environment that set a good example. Fearing her reaction if she knew about it ahead of time, I moved out of the house unannounced in February 2003 one evening while Kyoko was out.   I had every intention of maintaining a quality relationship with my children and helping her cope and move on. Unfortunately, one day after moving out I went back to our house to pick up Takoda Weed (aka Tei Oda) for school and retrieve some personal items, a set of tools. Kyoko physically tried to stop me from doing so. Sensing trouble, I tried to just get away from her, but she tripped me with tools in hand.  We both fell to the ground and as advised by our attorneys, we both filed police reports. A few days later she filed a restraining order which she obtained with false written statements.  Ever since I have had to legally fight to see my children.

During the divorce Kyoko was suddenly in possession of promissory notes for loans from her family, including an un-repaid house loan from her mother Miyoko Oda.  (We had returned that money long ago.) Most I had never seen before and some (1 or 2) were signed only by Kyoko.  Thankfully the judge saw through one of them, which was a wedding gift. 

Just prior to the finalization of the divorce, Takoda Weed (aka Tei Oda) (age 5 at the time) came to me one day out of the blue and said: “I have a Japanese daddy, Otou-san”.   This explained why Kyoko would rather spend time in Japan than in the U.S.  Finally, after all those years of marriage and counseling, I realized that our problems were not just cultural differences.  Her family values and morals are incompatible with mine. What really scares me is that SHE AND HER FAMILY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO HAVE ABDUCTED MY KIDS AND ARE NOW RAISING THEM!

Our divorce was final at the end of 2003, and the Court allowed her to relocate to Japan with the children. As recommended by the custody evaluator, the Court ordered that I was to have unlimited contact by phone, mail and webcam as well as three vacations together each year in the US and in Japan. I never expected what came next.

Soon after leaving the US on January 16, 2004, she severed all contact, communication and court ordered visitation with me, their father.  This was in clear violation of Court orders regarding custody and visitation that were part of our final divorce decree.  She also cut off all contact and communication with all of Takoda Weed (aka Tei Oda) and Tiana Weed (aka Kiku Oda)’s extended family and friends in the US.

On April 28th, 2004 I went back to Court for enforcement measures and the Court cut her spousal support.

In accordance with the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, which Japan signed in 1970, my attorney tried to serve Court documents on the mother through official channels three times.  Japan designated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the Central Authority, the entity authorized to receive and effect service of judicial documents in accordance with The Hague Service Convention.  One by one the Ministry of Foreign Affairs returned them, through the local Japanese Consulate General.  The first time they said simply:

"Enclosed are documents that you sent to the authorities in Japan, in accordance with the "Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters." The documents were not delivered to the appropriate person(s).  The address is not correct."

While my ex-wife had been living in the U.S., she stayed with her mother on trips back to Japan, so I used her mother’s address on the first attempt. Since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to deliver to this address, I confirmed her new address by alternate means, which turned out to be in the same neighborhood as her mother. We tried again to use the Hague Service Convention.  This time they were returned with the same note, but the last sentence modified to say:

"The documents were (NOT) delivered to the appropriate person(s).  The address is correct but no one is ever there."

By this time I had had no contact with my children for over a year and a half.  A third attempt was returned with nearly the same explanation as the first, but without the last sentence.

"The Document [sic] were not delivered to the appropriate person(s)."

Each of the attempts also included a notation on the "Certificate Attestation" (the service documents) from the Tokyo District Court. These notes all indicated that in order to serve the documents, they had simply sent it thru the postal service and waited for the "retention period set by the post office" to expire before returning the documents as undeliverable.

Japan objected to paragraphs (b) and (c) of Article 10 of the Hague Service Convention, meaning that outside of the Hague Service Convention, my only alternative is the postal service. Yet they themselves only use the postal service, which apparently allows the recipient to refuse service simply by refusing the mail. This makes service of foreign judicial documents on an unwilling recipient impossible.  It seems that the Japanese government and the Japanese Courts are actually using the Hague Service Convention to prevent delivery of international Court documents rather than make it easy.

Unsurprisingly, the US Courts allowed alternate service, and we tried the postal service, email, and faxes to both her brother and her lawyer.  Email and faxes are difficult to accurately confirm, but we documented all attempts.  (The email was not obviously rejected, and we believe that some fax attempts got thru, although some were also terminated during transmission.)  I note that one attempt by fax, was to a Japanese lawyer, who had previously asked for information about me, implying that he was representing Kyoko Oda.  He now claimed that he was not retained by Kyoko Oda concerning this matter and returned the documents.

When trying to use the postal service for alternate service, we got a note back in Japanese saying the following:

“[The addressee] is not currently living here.  Since the sender is considered to be a dangerous person, the Metropolitan Police Department has intervened and a temporary injunction and refusal of delivery have been issued by a Court.  Please do not accept the delivery.  Delivery refused.  {Takada} [stamped] Agent. [Handwritten]”

This time, it appears that Japan's Postal Service and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police had worked with a Japanese Court and issued an order against delivery of these United States Court documents.  Obviously they knew that the contents were merely documents, otherwise the postal service, police department and the Court would not have collaborated to do this in the first place.   The claim of the sender being dangerous is doubly ridiculous since these were sent directly by my attorney, and by the Crowe Foreign Services Corporation, a well known overseas legal process services company.  So not only is the Japanese government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), preventing me from using the Hague Service Convention, but the police department and the Japanese Courts are preventing me from delivering documents directly by the only legal means possible.

On July 21, 2005, the Court that handled our divorce, granted me full legal and physical custody of the children.  This occurred in the place of Takoda Weed (aka Tei Oda) and Tiana Weed's (aka Kiku Oda) habitual residence, the place they had lived most of their lives.  It was not in some far off country with no internationally recognized jurisdiction.   The Court also terminated all support obligations and issued a warrant for the Japanese mother on related contempt charges.  But my attorney says that since we were “forced” to use an alternate means of service this ruling would not be valid in Japanese Family Court.  Yet there is no possible way a foreign parent can send Court documents to a Japanese parent who has abducted their child.

The Japanese government, the Tokyo Police Department, and the Courts themselves have created a convenient procedural excuse for a Japanese Court to refuse to return the children if I try to get them back in a Japanese Court.  The mother was never served any notice of trial or any legal proceedings within the requirements of the Hague Service Convention.  So I will certainly fail in a Japanese Court.  This is clear discrimination against a foreign father that seems to have been well coordinated by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and the Japanese Court system.

The Japanese government is helping Kyoko Oda to abduct my children.  I am deeply concerned for the long term mental wellbeing of my children. I fear they have been brainwashed, told numerous lies (possibly that I am dead) and/or are constantly moving from apartment to apartment. My children are now living with a wanted fugitive, who is being aided by her government. My children are being denied their American heritage by Japan's racial discrimination against foreign parents.

As Ambassador Hardy reminded Ichiro Komatsu, Director General of the International Legal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) on December 3, 2005: “…One could tell a lot about a society by how it treats its most vulnerable members – its children.”

Brett Weed
(Takoda & Tiana’s father)
 

Timeline

Articles

• Part 1 of 4: Frustrated Fathers of Abducted Children Turn to Public for Support; (By Kirsten Brown Scripps Howard Foundation Wire) Washington, December 15, 2006.  Four fathers quietly filed into a theater to watch "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story," a documentary about North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. If the names Walter Benda, Patrick Braden, Chris Kenyon and Paul Toland don't sound Japanese, it's because they're not. But their children are half-Japanese, and these fathers say Japan has committed the same crime against them that Japan accuses North Korea of committing.
• Part 4 of 4: Japanese Laws 'Erase' American Father;  (By Kirsten Brown Scripps Howard Foundation Wire) Washington, December 15, 2006. The last time Brett Weed saw his 6-year-old son, Takoda, the pair was driving in Weed's black Ford pick-up, the one that his son liked to call, "Daddy's big truck." That was also the day Takoda cheerfully announced, "I have a Japanese daddy." Takoda's babyish words threw Weed, 42, but it confirmed what he had long suspected: his ex-wife, Kyoko Oda, was slowly replacing him not only as a spouse but also as a father.