Boy kidnapped in Okla. found in Las Vegas with mother

By Mary Manning

Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 | 5:09 p.m.

A 4-year-old boy kidnapped in Oklahoma by his non-custodial mother is safe and the boy's mother is under arrest in Las Vegas in connection with the kidnapping, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said today.

Paula Michelle Mitchell has been booked into the Clark County Detention Center on first-degree kidnapping charges, Masto said. The boy and his 18-month-old half-brother were turned over to the custody of the Department of Family Services.

The 4-year-old's father, who is also the custodial father of the 18-month-old, had searched for more than two years before finding Mitchell in Las Vegas.

Mitchell had been hiding from the 4-year-old's father for several years by moving from state to state to avoid custody petitions and to keep the father from finding her or the children, Masto said. She had filed several petitions in Las Vegas Family Court to change the names of the children and to terminate the parental rights of the father, claiming he had neglected and abandoned the children.

After several of her requests were granted by family court judges -- without having to notify the children's father because she said she didn't know where he was -- the judges vacated the orders after finding that Mitchell did know where the father was and that she had lied to the court, Masto said.

Mitchell had seen the father of the child weeks earlier. The child's father found Mitchell in Oklahoma in 2007 and attended a court hearing there in April 2008. A Garfield County District Court judge exercised temporary emergency jurisdiction over the child and granted custody to the father.

Rather than return the child to the Oklahoma court, as ordered by the judge, Mitchell fled and returned to Las Vegas, where she continued with her petitions in family court to sever the father's parental rights.

The father found Mitchell and the orders in the Las Vegas court were set aside based on fraud, Masto said.

First-degree kidnapping in Nevada is punishable by a life sentence in prison with the possibility of parole, Masto said.

"After the defendant evaded the civil court system for several years and disobeyed direct court orders to return the child, we are gratified to be able to facilitate the reunification of this young kidnapping victim with his understandably very happy father who has been searching for him for over two years," Masto said.