By Courtney Dentch
A former Jamaica Estates man who fled to New Mexico with the baby boy he and his wife thought they had legally adopted in 1980 was granted parole after serving two years in prison on kidnapping charges, according to records from the Division of Parole.
Barry Smiley, 58, passed his review before the Parole Board May 13 after telling the commissioners that he never thought of the biological family’s feelings during the 22 years he raised the boy as his son, according to a transcript from the parole hearing. He and his wife named the boy Matthew Propp.
“I never considered the harm we did to them,” Smiley said at the hearing. “When I came back and realized what we had done, I was horrified.”
Smiley was scheduled to be released from the upstate New York prison July 23.
Smiley and his wife Judith, 57, turned themselves into the Queens district attorney’s office in 2001, 21 years after they left the borough with Matthew, who is now 25 and living in New Mexico with Judith Smiley.
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. The court ordered the boy be returned to his biological family, but the Smileys fled, leaving their Jamaica Estates home and high-paying city jobs and adopting the aliases Bennett and Mary Propp.
“We felt his best interests were never considered by the courts,” Smiley said at the hearing. “We were never asked about his health, any information.”
It was not until Matthew was 21 and expressed interest in becoming a police officer that the Smileys told him about the adoption and the abduction. The couple decided to turn themselves in and reached a plea agreement with Queens District Attorney Richard Brown in June 2002, just as they were about to go to trial.
Judith Smiley 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. She was released after two months.
Barry Smiley pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to two to six years. While in prison Smiley earned “excellent program evaluations” and tutored fellow inmates working for their general equivalency diplomas, according to the parole hearing transcript.
“You have done well in prison,” said Commissioner Vernon Manley.
Upon release, Smiley plans to return to New Mexico and work for his lawyer, he said.
Meanwhile, Russini, Propp’s biological father, has been trying to establish a relationship with his son, but the two have not spoken for sometime, according to the parole hearing transcript. Smiley told the parole board he was encouraging Propp to invite his biological father to his upcoming wedding, but he was not sure if the young man had done so.
Russini could not be reached for comment.
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
