Barry, 56,…
By Courtney Dentch
As part of a deal struck with the Queens district attorney in June, a former Jamaica Estates couple was sentenced to prison in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens Tuesday for kidnapping the toddler they thought they had adopted 22 years ago.
Barry, 56, and Judith Smiley, 55, formerly of 80-51 190th St. and now living in Albuquerque, N.M., pleaded guilty under an agreement with Queens DA Richard Brown as jury selection in their trial was beginning. Under the plea arrangement, Barry pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping and Judith pleaded guilty to custodial interference.
Barry Smiley was sentenced Tuesday morning to a two- to six-year term and Judith received six months in prison and 4 1/2 years’ probation.
The deal also stipulates that the Smileys make restitution up to $100,000 to Anthony Russini, the biological father of the boy the couple raised as Matthew Propp, who now is 23. As part of the plea agreement, the district attorney will not charge the Smileys with identity theft for the aliases – Mary and Bennett Propp – they used while living in New Mexico.
“Everyone who has been touched by this case has been consumed by it for the last two decades. The Russinis suffered for 23 years and it won’t end today,” said prosecutor Eric Rosenbaum. “They cannot be made whole.”
Barry Smiley offered an apology to Matthew’s biological family, but the family sighed in disgust and one woman called Smiley a liar.
“I wanted to apologize to the Russinis for the pain I caused them,” Barry Smiley said. “I never, never intended to cause any pain.”
The Smileys fled New York in 1980 when they were ordered by a Queens Family Court judge to return the boy to his biological parents, who claimed the adoption that put the 15-month-old in the care of the couple was not legal.
The newborn had been taken from the hospital by his maternal grandfather, who allegedly tricked his 19-year-old daughter, Deborah Gardner, into signing adoption papers. He then passed the newborn to an attorney who gave the child to the Smileys.
Months later, Gardner and her boyfriend, Anthony Russini, the child’s father, went to family court to get the boy back.
“Twenty-three years ago, I was ready, willing and able to raise my son,” Russini told the court, talking about the bike rides and ball games he had missed. “Twenty-three years ago, Barry and Judith Smiley stole my son away from me and robbed me of that life.”
But State Supreme Court Justice Roger Rosengarten said Matthew was also robbed.
“You’ve put Matthew in a Catch-22,” he told the Smileys. “He can’t do right no matter what he does. He’s torn asunder within himself.”
Matthew echoed this when he addressed the court on behalf of the Smileys.
“There’s been some good to come from this,” he said. “I met my family and I look forward to forging relationships with them. But the very simple fact is that in gaining all this I’m loosing my parents.”
The couple returned to New York last year with Matthew and surrendered to the Queens district attorney’s office in March 2001. The Smileys said they had decided to tell Matthew about the kidnapping and give themselves up despite reports that they had been forced to confront the issue when he needed his birth certificate for a job.
The Smileys’ lawyers had been trying to reach a plea agreement with the district attorney for months, but Russini had been adamant that the couple stand trial. The defendants’ health conditions and the emotions involved in the case prompted the deal last month, said Steven Brill, Judith’s lawyer.
Judith was offered an agreement for a lesser charge and sentence due to health problems, Brown said at the time of the agreement. She has diabetes and kidney problems and was expected to spend her six-month jail term in the infirmary at Rikers Island, Brill said.
Judith Smiley also offered her apologies to the Russini family at the sentencing Tuesday.
“It was never my intention to hurt anyone, only to protect the child that I had grown to love,” she said.
But Rosengarten said protecting him would have been to return him to his biological parents 23 years ago.
“If you had obeyed the orders of the court, Matthew would have probably been living with his family and his grandparents, and would probably call you uncle and aunt.”
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.
