Trial May Hit 'Jolie' Adoptions
By BRAD HAMILTON
New York Post (NY, USA)
April 1, 2007 -- When Johnson & Johnson heir Elizabeth "Libet" Johnson flew to Cambodia in 2003 to set up a $15 million foster-care facility in Phnom Penh, she came across a tiny boy in a box, an orphan who was all smiles.
She hurriedly phoned her boyfriend, celeb weight-loss expert Dr. Lionel Bissoon, and told him, "I found your son."
Now the pair are locked in a bitter battle over the fate of the child, now 4 - accusing each other of being inept parents, and worse.
Back in 2003, Bissoon - a Trinidad native who wrote "The Cellulite Cure" and counts singer Roberta Flack among his clients - flew to Cambodia after Johnson's call.
The pair had been dating for only six months, and they lived 10 blocks apart on the Upper West Side - she in an $18 million Trump apartment on Central Park West - but both fell for the boy, named Rath Chan.
Bissoon recalled: "When I held my son for the first time, he was looking at me going, 'Where were you?'
"In my head I heard his voice. Right there I made him a promise - I was always going to be there for him."
But there were problems. The United States had banned Cambodian adoptions in 2001 due to allegations of widespread baby selling. Also, Johnson's family objected - they didn't want a Cambodian orphan heir.
So the couple thought they'd be creative. Bissoon, alone, would adopt the child through his native Trinidad, which had no ban, and the couple would together raise the boy they'd renamed William in New York.
Nearly four years later, however, the blissful life Bissoon imagined is gone. First, Trinidad denied Bissoon's adoption claim because he was a single man, jeopardizing the little boy's immigration status after he'd already been flown to New York for medical treatment.
Then, Johnson - an heir to her family's $170 billion pharmaceutical empire - blocked Bissoon from seeing William after the two broke up in 2005.
Now the couple is now locked in a bruising court battle.
She hurriedly phoned her boyfriend, celeb weight-loss expert Dr. Lionel Bissoon, and told him, "I found your son."
Now the pair are locked in a bitter battle over the fate of the child, now 4 - accusing each other of being inept parents, and worse.
Back in 2003, Bissoon - a Trinidad native who wrote "The Cellulite Cure" and counts singer Roberta Flack among his clients - flew to Cambodia after Johnson's call.
The pair had been dating for only six months, and they lived 10 blocks apart on the Upper West Side - she in an $18 million Trump apartment on Central Park West - but both fell for the boy, named Rath Chan.
Bissoon recalled: "When I held my son for the first time, he was looking at me going, 'Where were you?'
"In my head I heard his voice. Right there I made him a promise - I was always going to be there for him."
But there were problems. The United States had banned Cambodian adoptions in 2001 due to allegations of widespread baby selling. Also, Johnson's family objected - they didn't want a Cambodian orphan heir.
So the couple thought they'd be creative. Bissoon, alone, would adopt the child through his native Trinidad, which had no ban, and the couple would together raise the boy they'd renamed William in New York.
Nearly four years later, however, the blissful life Bissoon imagined is gone. First, Trinidad denied Bissoon's adoption claim because he was a single man, jeopardizing the little boy's immigration status after he'd already been flown to New York for medical treatment.
Then, Johnson - an heir to her family's $170 billion pharmaceutical empire - blocked Bissoon from seeing William after the two broke up in 2005.
Now the couple is now locked in a bruising court battle.
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