Ex-Wife Will Be Tried on Child-Stealing Charges

A fundamentalist Christian who spirited her young son away from her homosexual ex-husband five years ago in a case that drew nationwide attention will be prosecuted on felony child-stealing charges, Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller said Tuesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way to prosecute Betty Lou Batey last week when it refused to review a state appellate court ruling that the two weeks Batey spent in jail three years ago for civil contempt did not bar her from being prosecuted on the criminal charge.

“It’s being pursued because the district attorney feels it is important to be pursued,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Hugh McManis said. “It’s felt that child-stealing is an important issue and people who take children from the lawful custody of their spouse--whatever their religious persuasion or sexual persuasion--the Legislature has determined that is inappropriate conduct.”

Political Pressure Alleged

Batey’s attorney, Michael Farris of Washington, said that Miller is under political pressure to pursue the case and that Batey already has suffered enough.

“It’s clearly improper to continue this,” said Farris, who represents Batey on behalf of Concerned Women for America, a Christian group headed by fundamentalist activist Beverly LaHaye. “She’s already spent time in jail over this deal.”

Batey declined to comment on the case.

McManis said prosecutors held off announcing that the case would go forward after the Supreme Court ruling so they could weigh the feelings of Frank Batey, the ex-husband, and Brian Batey, 15, who now lives with his father in Palm Springs.

Both said they wanted the case to proceed, McManis said.

In an interview, Frank Batey explained that he wanted his ex-wife prosecuted to restore the credibility of the state’s child-stealing laws and to provide some closure to a legal and emotional odyssey that dates back to 1980.

“I’d like to see it get over with,” he said. “No judge ever told Betty she did anything wrong.”

Betty Lou Batey will be tried April 15 on two counts of child-stealing, but the trial date is likely to be postponed at least a week because of the Easter holiday.

If convicted, she could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in state prison. Her ex-husband, however, said he hoped she would not be imprisoned if she is convicted guilty, but rather sentenced to community service--perhaps at a missing-children’s organization.

The Bateys were married in 1969, when both were members of the United Pentecostal Church in San Diego. Brian was born in 1971, and the couple was divorced in 1975.

Initially, Betty Lou Batey was granted custody of the boy, but when she refused to allow Brian to visit his father in 1980, Frank Batey took the matter to court.

A judge transfered custody to him in August, 1982. Two weeks later, when Betty Lou Batey picked Brian up for a scheduled weekend visit, they disappeared for 19 months.

In April, 1984, she surrendered to the FBI in Denver, explaining that she had sought to protect her son from his father’s homosexual life style. San Diego prosecutors pressed the child-stealing charges. Meanwhile, in family court, Betty Batey was held in contempt for violating court orders during her months underground.

Frank Batey’s custody rights were reaffirmed by a Superior Court judge last July, and the boy sees his mother once or twice a month.

‘Virtual Confession’

McManis said prosecutors planned to use Betty Lou Batey’s testimony in the contempt proceedings as a virtual confession to the child-stealing charges. The criminal case only is going to trial, he said, because Betty Lou Batey’s fundamentalist supporters want to use the courtroom to publicize their beliefs.

“Right out of her own lips she admitted all the elements of the crime,” McManis said. “I don’t know why there should even be a trial.”

But Farris said the case is not open and shut. “We’re not going to hide what she did,” he said. “But to say what she did constitutes felony child-stealing is not a safe conclusion.”

Though McManis expressed concern that the publicity attendant to further court proceedings might harm the youth, Frank Batey said the possibility of bringing the court drama to a conclusion probably would do his son good.

“I don’t think he likes to see either of his parents under stress or involved in litigation,” Batey said. “Perhaps, this will mean a near end to that.”

More court action is pending in the complicated imbroglio, however. Frank Batey acknowledged that he is subject to an arrest warrant when he returns to San Diego County for failing to pay one of his ex-wife’s legal bills from an earlier stage of the custody fight.