Illinois: People v. Strelioff: Mother found guilty of Parental Abduction. By: Alicia K.

Link for opinion: www.state.il.us/court/R23_Orders/.../2011/.../2091220_R23.pdf

The Illinois Court of Appeals held in People of Illinois v. Strelioff 2011 IL App (2d) 091220-U, that the trial court did not err in denying motion to dismiss indictment, that there was sufficient evidence to convict Crystel Strelioff of four accounts of child abduction and award ex-husband Brian Strelioff expenses that were incurred during search for children. The courts sentenced defendant to two concurrent terms of three years on 2 merged counts and awards $73,340 to Brian Strelioff in reimbursement of expenses incurred.

Brian and Crystel Stelioff were married and had two children L.S. and M.S. while living in California and then later moving to Illinois. Defendant filed for divorce in California and it was discovered that Illinois had jurisdiction over case. During the dissolution of their marriage which was final April 28^th, 2000 Brian was awarded sole custody of children and allowing defendant visitation; also within that order neither parent was to permanently remove children from the jurisdiction of Illinois without either written consent of other parent or granted by courts; however both were allowed to travel out of the state of Illinois for vacations as long as other parent was notified and children were returned.

In the Summer of 2004 Defendant, Crystel Strelioff, failed to do such. She had taken the children to California without notifying her ex-spouse and failed to return them. Both M.S. and L.S. had been staying with defendant due to a DCFS investigation involving allegations of abuse against Brian where he was asked to voluntarily give up his visitation and contact with both children during the time of the investigation and choose to allow them to reside with defendant or be put in foster care for the duration of the investigation, in which Brian chose residing with defendant to be less traumatic for the children. Investigation was found unfound and Brian sought to regain his custody and contact when he discovered the children had been taken out of Illinois.

Originally defendant was charged with six counts of child abduction on June 29, 2005 where Counts I and II were dropped by state and Counts III through VI alleged that defendant committed child abduction under section 10—5(b)(2) for both M.S. and L.S. Count III alleged that defendant violated Judge Brown’s April 28, 2000, order by removing M.S. from the court’s jurisdiction. Count IV alleged the same regarding L.S.

While court was pending defendant and children remained in California with defendant reporting to Illinois probation department from May 2005 until May 2008 where she than stopped reporting and a warrant was issued for her arrest, and was later arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Throughout the years there were numerous motions to dismiss defendant’s indictment on many different claims which were all denied. Children had been ordered to be returned to Illinois on numerous occasions but defendant failed to follow the court orders. There were also many investigations regarding Brian and alleged sexual abuse against his children in both California and Illinois, the investigation in California was never resolved and Illinois investigations were found unfound.

Final order was filed August 2011 and in the end the court affirms the decisions of the Kane County court and held the above stated orders.