Aviation hobbyists were the first to sound the alarm: A Justice Department jet was on a rare, direct course from Virginia to Cuba on Monday, fueling instant rumors online about its mission.
Did the Boeing 757 carry a secret diplomatic envoy? Was it a sign of shifting relations between Cuba and the United States? Or part of a more aggressive push by the Trump administration against Havana?
The answer was buried in a federal complaint filed days earlier in a Utah courthouse: The plane was part of an unusual F.B.I. mission to retrieve a 10-year-old American child who the F.B.I. believed had been kidnapped by a transgender parent and her partner to potentially undergo gender transition surgery, according to federal court filings.
The plane landed in Cuba on Monday to retrieve the child, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive mission.
Two women from Cache County, Utah, Rose and Blue Inessa-Ethington, were arrested by the F.B.I. and are now facing federal kidnapping charges, according to the filings. Rose, one of the child’s biological parents, shares custody with the child’s biological mother, identified only as “LB” in filings. Rose transitioned to female after the child’s birth, according to her family members.
The allegations against the two women were detailed in an affidavit filed by an F.B.I. special agent, Jennifer Waterfield, in Utah federal court last week. In the filings, the F.B.I. described an elaborate, multicountry kidnapping plot involving $10,000 in cash. Agents believe that the two women deceived the child’s biological mother with a fake camping trip to Canada before heading to Mexico and fleeing to Cuba, according to the filings.
Lawyers and experts who have worked on parental kidnapping cases, which are typically complex, especially when a parent travels with a child abroad, said that it was highly unusual for the F.B.I. to dispatch a massive government-owned plane outside the country for a case like this.
“This is bizarre, highly unusual,” said Jay Groob, president of American Investigative Services, a firm that helps clients in child custody and recovery cases. “I’ve never heard of that happening.”
The case also appeared to touch on a major policy issue for the Trump administration: cracking down and restricting transition surgeries for minors, procedures that the administration has characterized as “surgical and chemical mutilations.”
The F.B.I. said it learned of concerns expressed by family members that the two women intended to transport the child, described in the filings as a “10-year-old biological male who identifies as female,” to Cuba to undergo transition surgery “prior to puberty.”
The two women were captured on Monday after Cuban authorities helped locate them, the filings said. The child was also recovered and was placed with the biological mother, “LB,” in Utah on Tuesday, according to the mother’s lawyer.
The New York Times was unable to reach representatives for the women, and it was unclear if they had retained lawyers following their arrest.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” Melissa Holyoak, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, said in a news release issued by the Justice Department on Tuesday.
The two women accused of kidnapping were transported to Richmond, Va. on the Justice Department aircraft.
The full extent of the Cuban government’s cooperation is unclear. But the flight came a few weeks after the Trump administration sent a senior diplomatic delegation to Cuba to negotiate changes on the island as President Trump continues to pressure Cuba’s Communist leadership into submission.
According to the filings, the 10-year-old child, who is not identified by name, split time living with divorced parents in Utah: Rose Inessa-Ethington, 42, and the child’s biological mother.
On March 28, Rose Inessa-Ethington and her partner, Blue, 32, were scheduled to go camping in Calgary, Alberta, with the child and Blue’s 3-year-old child, the filings said.
But the women never reached the hotel or campground and cut off contact with the child’s biological mother “LB,” the filings said. The child was supposed to be returned to “LB” on April 3, but that did not occur, in violation of the parents’ custody agreement, the filings said.
Investigators determined that the two women had instead crossed the Canadian border from Washington State on March 29 and flown with the child from British Columbia to Mexico City, the filings said. They then traveled to Merida, Mexico, and flew to Havana on April 1 using their American passports, according to the filings.
Local police in Utah and the F.B.I. began investigating, with Ms. Waterfield, the special agent, detailing what the government said was evidence of a planned operation following a search of the their home: $10,000 in withdrawn cash and “to-do” lists detailing plans to empty bank accounts, learn Spanish, obtain tourist visas and put items in storage.
Investigators also said they found notes with instructions from a mental health therapist in Washington, D.C., related to “gender affirming medical care for children” and a request to send the therapist $10,000.
On April 13, a Utah state court ordered the 10-year-old to be returned to the child’s biological mother immediately and granted the mother exclusive custody of the child, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Last Thursday, Cuban law enforcement located the group in Cuba.
Ms. Waterfield, the special agent, said in court filings that the child’s family members blamed Rose Inessa-Ethington for manipulating the child to identify as a girl. Federal agents also said that the women did not appear to have made plans to return to the United States with the child, in violation of federal international parental kidnapping laws.
Rose Inessa-Ethington’s brother, Steven Ethington, told The Times on Tuesday that she had been “rather adamantly pushing” for the child to get transition surgery since the child was about 5 years old, Mr. Ethington said, adding that he would have been supportive of the child’s gender identity had it seemed to be the child’s choice.
“This seemed to be clearly all be coming from Rose,” Mr. Ethington said. “It was heartbreaking and hard for me to see.”
Tess Davis, a lawyer representing the child’s biological mother, said that the surgery was a continuing issue during the divorce process.
“I don’t think she ever imagined that Rose could do this until it was too late,” Ms. Davis said in an interview. “She was worried about never seeing her child again.”
Alan Feuer contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
