Fathers Plead Guilty to International Kidnapping

The second of two brothers who took their sons from Playa del Rey in 2008 on a two-year international odyssey without the mothers’ consent pleaded guilty on Tuesday to international parental kidnapping charges.

The brothers, George and John Silah, were divorced from the boys’ mothers and had only partial legal custody. After traveling through Central America and Europe for two years, the FBI eventually apprehended them in the Netherlands in 2010, where the mothers were reunited with their children.

John Silah, 51, was extradited to the U.S. in March, and pleaded guilty before a U.S. District Judge on one count of international parental kidnapping on Tuesday. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 6.

George Silah, 49, returned to the U.S. in October 2011, and on Feb. 21 pleaded guilty to two counts of international parental kidnapping.

The maximum penalty for the crime is three years in federal prison.