Actress Kelly Rutherford arrived in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday morning without her children, flouting a court order to bring them before a judge for their return to daddy in Monaco.
“Obviously your client is not in compliance,” Justice Ellen Gesmer scolded Rutherford.
“I don’t look kindly on [it],” Gesmer told Rutherford, shushing the mother when she tried to speak.
“Excuse me, you have counsel, Ms. Rutherford,” Gesmer said.
The “Gossip Girl” star has been fighting a years-long custody battle with her Monaco-based ex-husband Daniel Giersch.
She was supposed to return her son Hermes, 8, and Helena, 6, to their father on Aug. 6, but she refused, claiming they belong in the US with her.
So Giersch filed a writ of habeas corpus demanding that Rutherford bring the children to court with their passports.
“The writ is clear as a bell,” said one of Giersch’s attorneys, Ira Garr.
Rutherford’s lawyer said his client didn’t want to subject her children to the “media circus” outside court where a dozen members of the press waited after both sides made public statements about their custody battle.
“The children are very close by, perhaps 10 minutes,” said Rutherford’s attorney Alexander Rojas.
“We felt it was in the best interest of the children to avoid the media circus,” Rojas said.
Giersch’s second lawyer Robert Michaels suggested that the German businessman’s mother, who was present in court, could take care of the children while the judge made her decision.
Giersch’s lawyer then asked the judge to boot the press from the public courtroom.
Despite arguments from the press that the two sides are fighting over technical issues – including which state and country has jurisdiction over the case that’s been tried in California, Monaco and New York — and not the children’s’ lives, Justice Gesmer barred the press from the proceeding.
“Press coverage is not necessary,” Gesmer said. “I have an independent duty to protect the children’s best interests.”
The proceeding is continuing.