The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Clayton dad: Ex-wife ‘gamed’ legal system

Submitted Kent Swaim of Clayton with his sons, William and James, and his former wife Miyuki. Contributed photo

Although Kent Swaim of Clayton was awarded full custody of his two sons by a Montgomery County judge, he hasn't seen them in the two years since his former wife took the kids to her native Japan. She has allowed him only telephone and Internet contact with the boys, William and James. Swaim tries to connect with his sons through Skype at a designated time each week.

Lisa Powell/Staff Although Kent Swaim of Clayton was awarded full custody of his two sons by a Montgomery County judge, he hasn't seen them in the two years since his former wife took the kids to her native Japan. She has allowed him only telephone and Internet contact with the boys, William and James. Swaim tries to connect with his sons through Skype at a designated time each week.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Man, 68, drowns at Caesar Creek Lake
5/26/12
Water rescues prompt warning from health officials
5/25/12
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
5/25/12
Raleigh Trammell’s defense opens in felony trial
5/25/12
UD to move satellite campus to Dublin
5/25/12
> More headlines

By Mary McCarty and Lou Grieco
Staff Writers Updated 3:08 PM Sunday, August 15, 2010

By all accounts, Miyuki Swaim had trouble adapting to life outside her native Japan after marrying Kent Swaim in 1999.

Her English was not strong and her husband spoke only about 40 words of Japanese.

After reviewing her medical records, Montgomery County Juvenile Court Judge Judith King noted that Miyuki had made two suicide attempts and suffered from “severe depression as a result of being unable to adapt to another culture.”

But Swaim said his former wife mastered one part of American culture very well by exploiting the domestic-violence protocol, designed to protect potential victims, in order to spirit the children away to her native Japan.

Swaim hasn’t seen his children for two years, despite gaining custody from Montgomery County Juvenile Court. He’s been stymied in his attempts to have his sons returned because Japan is one of the only industrialized nations that doesn’t honor custody rights of parents from other countries.

His wife left the United States in 2008 with their sons William, then 8, and his brother James, 3, after claiming Swaim verbally abused her — an allegation he vehemently denies. The claim prevented the Air Force master sergeant from looking for his children and bought her time to return to Japan with the children.

Swaim believes that she manipulated well-meaning people — from the family pastor to a battered women’s shelter — to keep him away from his children until she procured plane tickets to Japan. “She is a smart woman and she planned the whole thing very carefully,” he said. “She gamed the system.”

‘She felt she was going to get dumped’

It was a chain of events that began, Swaim believes, in June 2008, when he delivered an ultimatum: Finally commit to mental health treatment or the marriage is over.

“I think that she felt that she was going to get dumped, and she would be stranded here in the United States, alone,” said Miyuki’s Dayton attorney, Eugene Robinson. He said that his client believed her husband was unfaithful — another charge Swaim insists is not true. “Whether it’s true or not, she got the hell out of dodge,” Robinson said.

The attorney said Miyuki’s intent was not to deny Swaim’s parental rights: “She was probably more concerned about her own sanity.”

Swaim had been in the Air Force for more than a decade when he met his future wife at an Okinawa ice cream shop. They were waiting in line, hit it off immediately and exchanged phone numbers.

She didn’t have an easy life, with an alcoholic, abusive father and a mother who worked several jobs to support the family. As the oldest child, Miyuki raised her brothers and sisters.

“She lost out on her childhood,” Swaim said, adding, “I like to be needed and I like to be wanted, and she did need me and want me.”

The couple married May 21, 1999, in Okinawa; their son William was born seven months later. The family was living in England, where Swaim was stationed at Lakenheath Air Force Base, when James was born in December 2004.

Miyuki was shy and insecure, and wouldn’t even go grocery shopping alone, Swaim said.

“She had a lack of confidence,” Robinson agreed.

Records from Lakenheath substantiate that Miyuki abused William, kicking him in the chest in 2003 after the boy, who was just shy of his fourth birthday, talked back to her.

Swaim said he came home and found his wife in a bedroom corner, curled up in the fetal position and crying. They went to the chaplain, who advised her to go to anger management class. She went to one class.

This, Swaim said, became part of a larger pattern. She would seek help, go to counseling, or take medication. Then, when she felt better, she would stop – and sink into depression again.

The abuse of the children continued, according to Swaim. “I’m actually very ashamed that I didn’t do something earlier,” he said.

Swaim said the abuse and neglect continued after he was transferred to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 2006, and the family moved to Clayton: “She was so consumed with her depression, she slept 14 to 16 hours a day,” he said. “The kids were left on their own pretty much.”

‘Society assumes that the dad is the bad guy’

It’s not clear when Miyuki decided to skip town, or how long she had been planning it. Swaim said she finally got her driver’s license about six months earlier.

On the morning of July 8, 2008, Miyuki asked to borrow the family car so she could go shopping. When he didn’t hear from her all day, he hitched a ride home with a colleague.

Swaim was dropped off at his house, which was stripped of things no burglar would steal, including their framed Japanese marriage certificate. “They even took my daggone cats,” Swaim lamented. “It was an extra slap in the face, her taking the cats, for no apparent reason other than to try to hurt me.”

He immediately called the Clayton Police Department, and officers came to the house to make a report. “It didn’t seem like they had a lot of concern,” he recalled.

1 | 2 | 3 next page »

Comment on this story on our Facebook page.

Share this article