In this Aug. 6 file photo, Veronica smiles at the Cherokee Nation Jack Brown House in Tahlequah. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World file
Baby Veronica will apparently stay with her biological father while he continues to appeal a decision to send her back to South Carolina, the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided this week.
Dated Thursday but not posted on the public docket until Friday, the Supreme Court’s order is sealed and no details were available. But the court apparently left in place a “stay” that effectively keeps the 4-year-old girl with her biological family in Oklahoma for the time being.
The court’s action, however, didn’t make the stay permanent either, apparently leaving open the possibility that it could be lifted before the appeals process plays out.
Citing a gag order, attorneys in the case declined to comment.
The decision came a month after Matt and Melanie Capobianco arrived in Tulsa hoping to go back to South Carolina with the girl they adopted at birth in 2009.
The appeals stem from two district court decisions, the first coming Aug. 30 in Nowata County, where District Judge Curtis DeLapp confirmed a court order from South Carolina giving custody to the Capobiancos and demanding that Dusten Brown hand over the girl.
Later that day, the Oklahoma Supreme Court temporarily blocked the order to give Brown time to appeal the decision. The adoptive parents had asked the court to lift the stay, but the justices apparently have not done so.
The Capobiancos arranged a private adoption with Brown's ex-fiancee and came to Oklahoma for the birth.
Turning 4 on Sunday, Veronica has now spent roughly half her life with each family - the first two years with the Capobiancos in Charleston, S.C., and the past two years with the Browns in Nowata, an hour north of Tulsa.
Brown has said that he was tricked into signing away his parental rights when he thought he was only agreeing to give custody to the birth mother.
He challenged the adoption in South Carolina, where the courts gave him custody in December 2011.
But the Capobiancos appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled this summer that South Carolina had misinterpreted a federal law in its original decision to give custody to Brown.
South Carolina then had to reconsider the case but didn't necessarily have to take custody away from Brown.
In July, however, the South Carolina Supreme Court gave legal custody back to the Capobiancos.
Brown is facing possible extradition to South Carolina to face a felony complaint of custodial interference, a felony that carries up to five years in prison. But his attorneys have said that he has broken no law because he was under no obligation to obey the South Carolina court order while appealing the case in Oklahoma.
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