RICKY RODRIGUEZ Jr - 6 yo (2008) - Pittsfield (NW of Springfield) MA

Pittsfield MA ---- Ricky Rodriguez Jr., the 8-year-old boy who was
found in Kansas recently two years after his abduction, is scheduled to
land with his father at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks
just before midnight Wednesday night, according to friends of the family.
Richard Rodriguez Sr. flew out to Americus, Kansas on Tuesday to
retrieve his son, who has been missing for two years.
According to the reports, Ricky Rodriguez Jr., was located by
authorities in Kansas, through the Web site of the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“It was amazing; I couldn’t believe it,“ Richard Rodriguez Sr.
told reporters in Springfield on Tuesday. “There was no sign I was ever going to get him back.“
The elder Rodriguez was en route to Kansas late Tuesday in hopes of retrieving his son from the Lyon
County Sheriff’s Office once some paperwork was ironed out.
The boy has been missing since Feb. 3, 2008, when Rodriguez returned
home to find that his girlfriend, Tina Marie Helfer, their son and all
his son’s belongings were gone. Rodriguez said he later found out that
she had gone to Kansas after starting a relationship with a man she met on the Internet.
After extensive efforts through his Pittsfield attorney, Rinaldo Del Gallo III,
Rodriguez finally got the Massachusetts Probate Court to rule
that he had full legal and physical custody last November.

Richard Rodriguez hadn’t looked his son in the
eyes for more than two years. But when the Pittsfield man walked into a
busy Kansas sheriff’s office Wednesday, his eyes cut through the crowd
with laser precision.
"I immediately noticed him sitting in a chair," said Rodriguez,
42, a clerk at Pittsfield’s A-Mart on North Street, describing his
emotional reunion with his son, Ricky.
"I called his name -- ‘Ricky!’ ‘Ricky!’ -- and he just
immediately ran over to me and jumped into my arms. He wouldn’t let go,"
said Rodriguez, a Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to the Berkshires
several years ago for work an employment opportunity.
On Feb. 3, 2008, Tina M. Helfer -- Rodriguez’s former girlfriend
and Ricky’s mother -- left Pittsfield with Ricky to start a new life in
Kansas, where she had met a man through the Internet. Until Wednesday,
Rodriguez hadn’t seen his now-8-year-old son since that fateful February
day, despite gaining legal custody of the boy in November 2009 and
exhausting every possible effort to locate Ricky.
Despite the court order granting sole physical and legal custody
of Ricky to Rodriguez, it still took Rodriguez more than two years and
two months to get his son back. And Rodriguez said he doesn’t plan on
losing him again.
Speaking to a crowd of reporters Thursday in front of the
Berkshire County Courthouse, Rodriguez struck a conciliatory tone when he spoke of Helfer,
the woman with whom he once shared a home, a child, a life.
Rodriguez said he isn’t planning any legal action against Helfer, nor
does he harbor ill-will toward her -- despite the fact that Helfer only
let Ricky have one brief phone conversation with Rodriguez since
February 2008.
"I would never do that to her," said Rodriguez, who will focus
his energy on rebuilding his relationship with Ricky.
And so far, so good: The pair went on a shopping spree Thursday
that included purchasing Ricky clothes and a new PlayStation2 video-game
system, among other things.
"I’m trying to set him up in school, get his doctor back," said
Rodriguez, ticking off a few of the things he must do in the days ahead.
"He’s very happy right now," Rodriguez said.
The one thing he instantly noticed, he said, was just how tall
his son had gotten since he last saw him, just days before Ricky’s sixth
birthday. "I immediately noticed he was bigger," Rodriguez said.
Pittsfield attorney Rinaldo Del Gallo III, who represented
Rodriguez in his fight to win back Ricky, described Helfer as an "unfit
mother" who illegally removed a child from Massachusetts.
Law enforcement officials maintain that Helfer never broke any
laws by taking Ricky to Kansas, and that she never received notice of
the court-ordered custody change granting guardianship to Rodriguez.
Pittsfield Police Detective Capt. Patrick F. Barry said Helfer never
received notice of the November 2009 court hearing that she was expected
to attend. As a result, a judge granted custody to Rodriguez.
Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless said Helfer was
"not knowingly involved in any criminal violation."
Del Gallo disputes that point, however, arguing that
Massachusetts’ so-called removal statute prohibiting relocation of a
child against the consent of the other parent should have trumped other
legal concerns.
"Once [Helfer] crossed state lines and went to Kansas, she broke
the law," Del Gallo said.
Regardless of whether or not Helfer’s actions rose to the level
of a kidnapping -- and law enforcement officials are adamant her actions
did not rise to that level -- Del Gallo said Ricky should have at least
been classified as a missing child.
That classification did not occur until two weeks ago, according
to Pittsfield police, who entered Ricky’s name into a national database
for missing children after receiving an April 15 request from the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Because Helfer had
legal custody of Ricky when she left Pittsfield, Ricky did not meet the
criteria to be classified as a missing child, Barry said.