DOJ flies Utah child home from Cuba amid custody kidnapping case

A federal government plane flew a 10-year-old Utah child home from Cuba after a custody dispute escalated into international parental kidnapping charges, a rare use of Justice Department power in a family case that has drawn attention because gender identity was at its center.

Prosecutors say the child was supposed to return from a court-ordered camping trip to Calgary, Alberta, on April 3, but was not brought back to the biological mother. Instead, court records say, the adults in the case traveled from Vancouver to Mexico City and then to Havana on April 1. The mother filed a missing person report in Logan City, Utah, after the child did not come home.

On April 13, a Utah state court issued a writ of assistance ordering the child returned immediately to the mother and granting her exclusive custody. Three days later, Cuban law enforcement located the child and the adults in Cuba, according to the Justice Department. The department said the adults were deported from Cuba with FBI assistance and later appeared for arraignment in Richmond, Virginia, before being transferred to Utah.

Federal prosecutors charged Rose Inessa-Ethington, also known as Eri Ethington, 42, and Blue Inessa-Ethington, also known as Carly Ann Crosby, 32, both of Cache County, Utah, with international parental kidnapping. The child’s mother and Rose had shared custody before the trip.

Authorities said the family believed the child, who was born male and had been identifying as female, might have been taken to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery. The criminal charges do not say surgery was scheduled or even possible, and NBC News reported that such surgery is not legal for children in Cuba. Investigators also said Blue withdrew $10,000 from her checking account before leaving, and agents found a note at the home referencing $10,000 and instructions from a therapist in Washington, D.C., about gender-affirming medical care for children.

The case is unusual not only because it crossed borders, but because it merged a custody fight, allegations involving a transgender child, and direct federal intervention to recover the child from another country. The Trump administration has been pressing to restrict gender-affirming care for minors and pressure health care providers on the issue, giving the case broader political resonance even as it remains, at its core, a child-welfare and parental-rights dispute. No public comment from the federal public defender representing the couple was immediately available.