Authorities return Ukrainian sisters to program
Authorities return Ukrainian sisters to program
Explore Park developer Larry Vander Maten said he had agreed to adopt the three orphans or change their visa status.
By Jorge Valencia
981-3340
A custody dispute involving Explore Park developer Larry Vander Maten and three Ukrainian sisters intensified Thursday afternoon when authorities removed the children from the builder's Florida mansion.
The sisters -- orphans age 9, 11 and 13 -- appeared to be in good condition when the Seminole County Sheriff's Office picked them up at Vander Maten's house and transferred them to the custody of the host program that brought them to the United States.
"Nothing appeared to be out of place or wrong with the kids when we made the transfer," said Lt. Barry Smith of the sheriff's office.
Vander Maten, who has proposed a $200 million renovation to Roanoke County's former Explore Park, hosted the sisters through Virginia Beach-based Frontier Horizons since early June and refused to send the sisters home as scheduled on Aug. 31, saying one of the sisters had the flu.
Frontier Horizons officials did not return requests for comment Thursday. But the organization's president, Vincent Rosini, said Wednesday that Vander Maten's refusal to return the children was jeopardizing the program, which brings about 90 children at a time to the United States and Canada.
Vander Maten, meanwhile, said in a phone interview Thursday that Frontier Horizons is in the "rent-a-kid business" and that the organization pays off Ukrainian bureaucrats to arrange the visits.
Vander Maten said he met the sisters on a mission trip with his foundation Ten Talents, which has sent medical and orphan aid to Sri Lanka and Zambia, and that he and his wife planned to adopt the three sisters.
He paid Frontier Horizons $3,500 for each child's arrangements to visit the United States in early June, he said, and he had agreed with their legal guardian that he would adopt them or change their visas to student status once they were in the United States. At Frontier Horizons' request, he said, he donated $13,000 to the organization over the summer.
In August, Vander Maten said, Frontier Horizons officials told him the sisters would have to travel to Ukraine before they could visit him and his family's 10,000-square-foot house again. He said he thought it was a ruse to wrangle money from him and his family.
"I think that when the sisters got here, the people in Ukraine realized I'm a wealthy American," he said. "They wanted their cut. They wanted their money."
Smith, of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, said that a federal judge in Orange County, Fla., ordered Thursday morning that the sisters be turned over to Frontier Horizons so they could return to Ukraine.
In a video posted online by a Central Florida television station, WFTV, deputies took the sisters to a suburban Orlando grocery store parking lot where two Frontier Horizons officials waited.
The three blond sisters stepped into the Frontier Horizons minivan's back seat carrying backpacks and stuffed animals. Outside, Vander Maten pointed his right finger and argued with a Frontier Horizons official before plain-clothed deputies separated them.
Rosini, of Frontier Horizons, said on Wednesday, "I have no doubt he [Vander Maten] has the best intentions of the kids in mind, but he's ruining our program. A deputy minister [from Ukraine] told me there will be no more hosting of our program."
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