'Hilary's Trial: The Elizabeth Morgan Case: A Child's Ordeal in America's Legal System'
by Jonathan Groner
Simon & Schuster, $21.95
"Hilary's Trial" is a profoundly disturbing examination of the most explosive and widely publicized custody battle of our time, the fight over Hilary Foretich by her physician parents. It involved litigation in two states, dozens of hearings and, ultimately, an act of Congress.
Jonathan Groner, an editor of Legal Times journal, paints a very different picture from that widely presented by Dr. Elizabeth Morgan, Hilary's mother, who contends that her ex-husband, Dr. Eric Foretich, sexually abused the child. Groner notes that almost no doctor ever backed up the abuse claim, but Morgan was hardly deterred - she simply fired the doctor and hired another and another, until she found one willing to state that Hilary might have been abused. Virtually every court to hear the abuse claim rejected it, as did the custody judge, who ordered visitations to continue; rather than comply, Morgan had her parents steal away Hilary. Morgan was held in contempt, imprisoned, and only freed by a misguided Congress. She now lives with her parents and Hilary in New Zealand.
This book was needed to balance a record that so far - especially in the national media - has portrayed Foretich as a calculating child abuser. Groner clearly believes that Hilary has been the victim of an unjust vendetta by her mother, against her father. One can only hope that a little girl in New Zealand named Hilary will one day read it and understand.
