By MAYER FERTIG
Horowitz allegedly took the boys, Yosef, 5, and Michael, 3, and dropped out of sight after a New York State Supreme Court judge in Hempstead awarded custody to the boys' mother, Stacey Horowitz, at a hearing on March 19.
“She was awarded temporary custody because of his failure to produce the children on numerous occasions for visitation,” said David Seidemann, an attorney who represents the mother. “We filed a writ of habeas corpus commanding him to appear in the courthouse with the children. He didn't show and [an] order was issued from the court that he be apprehended. She was granted temporary custody but it was too late, he was gone.”
“I'm scared for them,” Stacey Horowitz said of her children. “Everyone says they'll find them, but how can you disappear into thin air with two kids?”
She said that a friend who was dropping off a package for the boys early on March 20 saw Natan Horowitz's car filled with white garbage bags.
“The upstairs neighbor told me he saw someone with a yarmulke, a man in his 60s, go into the apartment that morning, so obviously someone is helping him,” Mrs. Horowitz said.
The boys do not have passports, she said, and her estranged husband has never left the country. His parents live in Woodmere, but they told detectives they do not know his whereabouts. Parents and son are said to be “not close.”
While the case was first considered to be custodial interference, a missing persons report filed with the Long Beach Police Department on March 31 upgraded its status.
E-mail about the boys' disappearance was sent out on that date by a Far Rockaway couple, Avi and Dawn Goldstein, who are friendly with Stacey Horowitz, and was forwarded “around the world” earlier this week. It noted that Natan drives a tan, four-door American car with the license plate DYP 1887 and moved to Long Beach from North Woodmere just two months ago. Jewish communities are asked to “look out for a newcomer with two children.” If someone spots him, it is suggested that local police be notified immediately.
The next day, the Goldsteins received an e-mail from a rabbi in Farmington Hills, Michigan, saying that Natan spent Purim in their community with the two boys. The rabbi, who identified Natan from his name and the descriptions given in the email, said that he was posing as a doctor who was on vacation, claiming that his wife had died in a car accident.
Mrs. Horowitz hasn't seen her boys since Feb. 25, though it's not the first time she and her sons were forcibly separated. After she suffered a bout of post-partum depression three years ago, following the birth of Michael, her husband had her committed against her will to a mental health facility and then refused to allow her to return home. He obtained an order of protection against her and used it to have her arrested eight times, she said, for infractions such as returning the boys two minutes late from court-ordered visitation.
Earlier this month Stacey Horowitz was evaluated by a mental health professional, who related that “there is no evidence that she is a danger to herself or others [and] there is no reason to think that Mrs. Horowitz would be anything other than a good parent,” the therapist said.
Natan “is also playing games with the Get,” Mrs. Horowitz said. He has ignored three summonses to appear before the Beth Din of America, according to an official at Get Ora, an organization which assists women who seek a divorce. A contempt of court document is awaiting the signature of the Av Beit Din, Rabbi Gedaliah Dov Schwartz of Chicago, according to Get Ora.
“I don't know what to think, what's with my kids,” Mrs. Horowitz said. “It's horrible. It's just horrible.”
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