"And the FBI took it to the U.S. Attorney, and they issued an international parental kidnapping warrant for her, and that's why she is wanted," said McCarty.

After Liam was taken, a New York court awarded McCarty full custody.

But as McCarty learned the hard way, the U.S. justice system is one thing -- the Italian justice system is another.

He said the Italian authorities dismissed his appeal.

"They said, 'Well, what she did was not illegal under Italian law, so it's not illegal,'" said McCarty.

"She's a fugitive," said McCarty's attorney, Phil Segal. "It's outrageous ... that the criminal authorities in Italy don't arrest or take her into custody and extradite her to the United States."

One might think there's some kind of international law for settling these kinds of disputes and preventing parental kidnappings. There is -- it's commonly called the Hague Abduction Convention. But when McCarty tried to invoke that treaty to regain custody of Liam, the Italian courts ruled that they still had jurisdiction over the custody question.

"Instead of applying international law properly, they just dismissed and said it was OK to redetermine custody," said Segal. "They had no authority to do that."

"She couldn't take in the fact that these evaluations were saying, 'Your child's safe. Your child's fine,'" said Schaul. "That was intolerable to her."

No Italian tribunal ever found any basis for Antonelli's claims of abuse, either. But they did put McCarty through an entire criminal inquest. During that proceeding, McCarty submitted the videos he shot with Liam as evidence that their relationship was healthy and strong.

"Just in the week before she left, there's videotape of him jumping all over me, hugging me -- it's a fortunate thing that I have it," said McCarty.

Italian authorities exonerated McCarty -- but it took forever, and in the meantime, he was not allowed to communicate with Liam. In two-and-a-half years he has seen his son only five times. And what about Liam? Aside from having his father ripped away from him, he was now subjected, again, to repeated questioning about being abused by his own father. "It's devastating," said Schaul. "Suddenly his father disappeared from his life. A father he loved. ...His

whole world is turned upside down." But it was not all bad news. After years of investigations and motions, an Italian court recognized that what Antonelli was doing was not just wrong, but damaging to Liam."They took away her

parental authority," said McCarty.

But instead of returning Liam to McCarty, the one parent who was deemed fit, the Italian courts made what McCarty called their most outrageous decision yet, placing Liam in an orphanage.

"Throughout all of this, I'm saying, 'Here I am, I've got an order of custody, give him back to me,'" said McCarty. "And they said, 'No, we're gonna put him in an orphanage.'"

"I have been to the orphanage," said McCarty. "It's not Dickensian, but it's not a resort. ... It's not home. I mean, I can't imagine what that must be like for him."

'He Hasn't Stopped Loving His Dad'

McCarty visited Italy more than 15 times, working with an Italian lawyer to get Liam back.

After placing the boy in an orphanage, the Italian courts stripped McCarty of his parental rights.

"They said that Liam was now rejecting me," said McCarty.

It was true, the loving father-son relationship seen in those videos was ruined. After years in Antonelli's custody, Liam was now hostile to his father. But experts say it's common for one parent to poison the child against the other in cases like this -- and it shouldn't have much bearing on the case.

"Just because Liam says he hates his father doesn't mean he does," said child psychologist Dr. Richard Warshak, author of "Divorce Poison." "You don't take it seriously when your child says that. And the Italian courts shouldn't take it seriously."

Warshak pointed out that Liam only started rejecting McCarty after he was abducted by Antonelli.

"He hasn't stopped loving his dad," said Warshak. "He just doesn't feel free to express those feelings and more than that, he's actually being rewarded for saying bad things about his dad. ... To give the 8-year-old child the authority and power to reject his father and to take that seriously, it's astounding."

But that's just what the Italian courts have done. And now McCarty is only allowed occasional, supervised visits with his son.

"It will be the first time I'm seeing him in five months," said McCarty before a recent visit. "A bit nervous about that,

but I'm excited to see him." The visit was supposed to help heal the father-son relationship. But when McCarty arrived, he got a nasty surprise.

"We arrived there and there was Liam, surrounded by six police officers. The mother was there, screaming," said

sent to Liam. They were never delivered.

"That just gets added to the pile. There is a giant pile of two-and-a-half years worth of Christmas presents that

haven't been given to him," said McCarty.

McCarty, worried that Liam's condition was deteriorating with each passing day, decided to fight back in another way. "I need to get him out of there," said McCarty. "I don't have a choice to give up."

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