The more we hear from Kelly Rutherford in her custody battle, the more desperate she sounds. (Which, to be fair, is how many people would feel in her situation.) Kelly has been fighting to bring her children back to live in the US with her after a judge ruled in 2012 that her son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 6, could live overseas with their father, Daniel Giersch, a German citizen. In her ruling the judge cited the fact that Kelly’s lawyer was instrumental in getting her ex’s visa to the US revoked.
The judge’s ruling stated that the children could stay with their father in Monaco until the end of the school year when his visa was restored. Kelly asserts that Giersch has not applied for another visa.
In the latest twist in their ongoing custody battle, Kelly’s lawyer claims that Daniel’s side falsified an email submitted to the court from an arguably non-existent US Consulate in Berlin. The email claims that Daniel’s US visa has been revoked and that he must surrender it. Daniel’s lawyer says that the email is authentic. You can see the email on People.com and here’s part of People’s report.
Although they technically share joint custody, Giersch, who lived in Los Angeles with Rutherford, 46, before their breakup, left the country in 2012 when his U.S. visa was revoked. So Rutherford has had to travel back and forth to Europe to see her children – by her count, more than 70 times.
But on Thursday, her legal team dropped a bombshell, alleging that an email the German businessman submitted during the 2012 trial about his visa being revoked was falsified.
“We brought to the California court’s attention for the first time today, the fact that a fraudulent email purporting to be sent to the children’s father by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin was submitted to the court in 2012 to justify the California court’s initial decision to make the children leave the United States and reside abroad,” attorney Wendy Murphy, who has been representing the children on behalf of Rutherford in federal court, said in a statement to PEOPLE.
Despite those claims, a Los Angeles judge declined to consider the matter Thursday during a teleconference discussing whether California or Monaco should have jurisdiction.
“Shockingly, the judge today ignored that evidence that that email was forged, though the record is clear that the email was never authenticated by either the father or the court, and it is abundantly clear that the document is not authentic as it is signed by the ‘US Consulate in Berlin’ and there is NO consulate in Berlin – there is only an embassy,” Murphy said. “The idea that a fraudulent document would lead to the forced exile of American citizens is unconscionable.”
However, Giersch’s attorney Fahi Takesh Hallin shot down the allegation.
“As our papers filed today indicate, the visa revocation was unfortunately very real,” Hallin told PEOPLE in a statement.
No one is denying that Giersch’s visa was revoked, Murphy says: The question is whether the language in the email he submitted to the court is accurate.
Murphy claims an expert pointed out three irregularities in the note: It’s signed by the U.S. embassy in Berlin but there is only a consulate in the German capital, and there is no date of visa revocation or date the visa was issued.
It’s true that there is no US Consulate in Berlin. There is an embassy on Clayalee in Zehlendorf, I used to live in Berlin and have been there to renew my passport. The embassy is often referred to as the consulate by locals. There is a “Consular Section” of that embassy, as this email references correctly, and I was also able to confirm that the originating email address, ConsBerlin@state.gov, exists. I looked for example emails from ConsBerlin to see if I could verify that they would sign off an email as “U.S. Consulate Berlin” and all I found was this email from a Consular Assistant. So it’s unclear from my brief research and minor personal experience whether there’s evidence that this email could be valid.
We do know of course that Giersch’s visa was revoked, and that Rutherford’s lawyer was responsible. Maybe that explains why the judge allegedly ignored this claim that the email was faked. That plus all the other claims that Rutherford has made over the years.
The Daily Beast has a new interview with Kelly, which includes veiled accusations that Giersch was planning to abscond with the children all along. She claims that he “kept pressuring me to get [Hermes] a German passport” when the baby was six months old. I married a German guy and we got our son a German passport a few months after he was born. This is just what you do when your child has a parent from another country so that they have the advantage of dual citizenship. Kelly of course never mentions the key fact that she’s the one who had the guy barred from the country.
Kelly also makes it sound in that interview as if Giersch had shady business deals and was using her for her money and fame. He is somewhat litigious, he won a lawsuit against Google to retain the rights to the Gmail name in the EU, which he trademarked in 2000. He also developed an app called Blipcard that allows people to send physical postcards from digital photos.
Either this dude is diabolical or she’s a bit nutty..
or a little bit of both
I think they’re both a bit off and using the children as pawns to seek revenge on one another. I dislike them both equally and can not feel sympathy for anyone but the children.
It’s really unbelievable how they can’t seem to realize how much they are hurting the kids with this insanity. Looking at the photos of happier times it’s hard to imagine how horribly things fell apart for them.
As far as their personal relationship is concerned, he could be as crazy as she appears to be.
However, in the parental relationship, she is the only one causing problems as documented in numerous court cases, so why is he being tarred with her crazy?
He is doing all he can to keep her in the children’s lives ( documented) whilst she is doing the very opposite (documented).
The father is just following the agreement decided by the court. He does not say anything negative about the mother, while mom is regularly disturbing the children with alienating talk about their father. She really should be supervised, such alienation efforts are very damaging to the children. But there is no evidence that her ex is doing that at all.
He does have real reason for concern after her threats to keep the children with her after summer vacation last year rather than returning them to their father, his family, and their schools as ordered by the court. The last straw was her open invitation to every superpatriotic nutcase in the U.S., saying they would be heroes if they kidnapped the kids and forced them back to the U.S. Plus she’s plastering pics of her kids all over the place, so a nutcase would know which ones to grab. Don’t try to make the situation symmetrical when obviously it isn’t.
‘Don’t try to make the situation symmetrical when obviously it isn’t.”
Just a bit of advice for you, Katy, courtesy of jwoolman, with which i concur.
Well said jwoolman, especially to your last sentence. It always surprises me how people try to make both sides in a divorce or custody hearing equally bad, especially when one size is aggressively campaigning to destroy the other.
I think that’s why things get ‘messy’ if you take most people’s perspective he’d be stripped of most of his rights to satisfy a woman who’s bordering on mentally abusive. You have to fight because it’s hard for some folks to fathom there are people in the world who don’t want to play fairly and will win at any cost.
I don’t think he is using his children as pawns. The fact is his US visa was revoked by Kelly’s lawyer in her attempt to get full custody by having him kicked out of the country and unable to return. I think she is the shady, desperate one who will do anything and make up any story to have full custody.
She’s nutty
You don’t hear about or see the kids unless it’s through kelly. They live a seemingly normal life with dad. He doesn’t talk badly about Kelly and the kids stay out of the press.
That’s what is best for them. When she has them, she constantly has them at events to be photographed
They BOTH are. Just this site favors him and other sites favor her. They are both ridiculous.
I see both sides of each of their stories ( that we kinda know about because who really knows all the details and there is always 3 sides to every story right?) so as a mother you bet I would do anything to get my kids back, anything. I would lie,cheat, steal and do anything shady and the world be damned.
We don’t know what kind of man he is, or father. How many times have men claimed “psycho” girl when in fact the girl became crazy due to the man in the first place?? Men can drive you to the brink of destruction especially with kids. Is she a saint? Nope but this guy isn’t either.
I am sure there is much more we don’t know especially about him. Probably a lot.
But that’s the thing, hadlyB, isn’t it? If you did “lie, cheat, steal and do anything shady and the world be damned” and your custody battle got to court with your ex able to demonstrate a commitment to co-parenting, you would lose too.
For all custody-related criteria, we know exactly the position of both parents. Both committed to their children, only one committed to non-alienation of the other parent.
It really is that simple.
Tut tut handyB………the world is full of winnes and losers and you are clearly not a winner. Only losers have to “lie cheat steal and even kill, because they know they dont have what it takes to win.
The custody of children is not a win or lose game, however. But ANYONE who wishes to nurture children, cant boast about lying cheating stealing. It means youre not worthy of having children in your care. I sincerely hope you dont.
So you’d do all that even if the man demonstrated that regardless of how he treated you that he’s a loving and capable parent?
Smh, custody shouldn’t be so vindictive. It explains why there’s so many children yanked back and forth during their development stages because one side is forever trying to score the final point to soothe a bruised ego.
I am not a winner? Huh? lol I have my kids and my husband.
But if it came to my husband doing shady stuff and being vindinctive towards to keep my kids away from me yes, I would do anything to get them back to me if he took them away. Its as simple as that. My point is that I don’t think this guy is so innocent in all of this – she is painted like some horrid person and him a saint. They both suck, its clear they BOTH using the kids to hurt each other.
I would never use my kids to hurt my husband if we divorced thats the difference.
I don’t believe he’s even doing this for the kids, he isn’t even taking care of them his parents are. He is being just as vindictive as she is and it only hurts the children in the end.
I understood your post Hadley, and concur.
I would stop at nothing to protect my children, even from their father, if there was clear TRUE evidence of criminal behaviour.
Fortunately for me this will not be an issue.
I do think though, he is doing it for the children. If he was not, he could simply have disappeared with them, once he arrived in Monaco. Instead he paid for kelly to visit, and is still not in the public bashing her.
But HOW is HE being vindictive?
She’s talking to the press and smearing his reputation. She’s the one campaigning not on abuse or corruption but on the kids being citizens. She’s the one claiming he’s forging emails.
She’s pretty much doing everything you’re not supposed to and your defense of that isn’t based on evidence or logic but fantasy. The same fantasy she keeps spouting to explain why he shouldn’t exist at all in the children’s lives. In terms of fighting against shady people and doing whatever it takes to keep your kids from that you’re ironically describing HIS perspective.
@Hadly please point to anything you have seen that shows Daniel is in anyway nutty.
One of the key concerns of the courts from early on has been Kelly’s refusal to co-parent. Why would it take a court order for you to put the biological fathers name on his child’s birth certificate? A court order she refused to follow. You are also willfully ignoring the FACTS that Kelly is using the media to forward her case. She also threatened days before the children were due to return to their father last summer NOT to send them back.
As time progresses this case becomes less a child custodial issue and more of a case of her lack of a skill set to co-parent and complete indifference to learn any.
@hadlyB, read the court documents. Those make it clear that he is doing his best to co-parent. It specifically states that he says positive things about Kelly to the children, buys gifts for the children and says they’re from Kelly on their birthdays, and lots more.
The court found, repeatedly, that he is doing all he can to facilitate the relationship between the kids and their mother, while Kelly isn’t doing the same.
WHY do you think he’s just as bad as Kelly? There’s nothing other than Kelly’s word–and Kelly has lied repeatedly about him and the situation–to indicate he’s anything but a loving father.
I do agree that we don’t know the man, but just going by the court docs, he’s more concerned with acting in the children’s best interests than Kelly is.
hadlyB – you’re missing the point. In all areas RELATING TO CUSTODY, he has done nothing that would negatively impact the outcome. She has. It’s all painstakingly laid out in the court judgement. Go through the judgement, I challenge you, and find one thing that the father has done RELATING TO CUSTODY that would be a black mark against his name. Then go through it and add up the mother’s. It’s father 0, mother eleventy billion.
Not my opinion; the court’s objective listing of events. words and deeds.
Despite this, she’s retained joint custody. She didn’t get residency because part of her eleventy billion sins RELATING TO CUSTODY meant that wouldn’t be fair to the father.
Whether or not someone is a nice person or not, or a good spouse or not, is not a matter RELATING TO CUSTODY.
HandlyB………Nothing youve said disproves the fact that IF indeed you do have children and a husband, I am sorry for them. I hope your husband never decides to divorce you because i dont think he’d ever see his kids again. Because as you confessed, you would lie cheat and steal to ensure that your kids stay with you whether or not youre stable.
Kelly and her former husband divorced: he did not divorce his kids; she did not divorce her kids.
However, HE, by all that we have read and seen of his actions, is behaving just as we would hope a divorced father who loves his kids would do: care for them, dont badmouth their mother, obey court orders.
SHE, on the other hand, by all that we have read and seen of HER actions, is behaving exactly like a vindictive scorned spiteful woman would behave WITH NO REGARD FOR HOW HER ACTIONS ARE AFFECTING AND WILL AFFECT HER KIDS. The same kids she tells everyone she loves.
If, like the rest of us, you see the same court documents that we have seen and heard kelly’s utterances in her interviews and read of her actions and that of her lawyers and, like us, see no comparative actions and utterances from the father, and yet you STILL believe that what she is doing is perfectly okay, then, like i said before, you have no business being responsible for bringing up children.
my goodness Dottie.
Do you really, and truly, think that making disparaging remarks to fellow posters strengthens your arguments?
The opposite is true. Something to ponder.
Actually, original kay, HandlyB opened that door. I merely stepped thru to help her get some clarity. Read the convo stream.
HandlyB said, inter alia:
“……as a mother you bet I would do anything to get my kids back, anything. I would lie,cheat, steal and do anything shady and the world be damned.”
Now i ask you, isnt that a cry for help and a teachable moment?
nah, you’re pulling my leg.
There is no way you actually believe the way to encourage a teachable moment is to disparage.
Fool me once!
Read the actual court documents. Over and over again, she brings the crazy and she defies court directions. SHE went public with a call to basically kidnap her kids, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. There is absolutely NO reason to favour her.
It’s not as if the children are in a bad situation! They are living in a beautiful country in the South of France with their loving (and not crazy) dad and their grandparents. What reason would ANYONE have to lie, cheat, steal to get them out of that situation? Selfishness, that’s what. She has partial custody. She is able to see her children often. She just doesn’t like the inconvenience of traveling to do so. So she lies, cheats. and steals out of vindictiveness and so she can do photo ops with her children at Hollywood events.
Just curious.. has he made any statements or interviews.. I keep hearing about what she says.. but nothing from him.
I think it is very telling that he keeps quiet and his attorneys are remarkably restrained in their responses to her foolishness. His lawyers and PR people are clearly setting him up to eventually win sole custody and/or limit her visitations. The more unhinged she behaves, the better he looks. Smart strategy.
True but she may be winning the PR war so let’s hope that any Judge/Court is able to cut through her BS.
As far as I remember – he didn’t. His lawyers made rare some statements but he is very quiet. She continues to trash him in courts, in the media and in front of their children and he says nothing but good things about her to them (as per – court documents) and nothing to the media. She accuses him of many things, but so far – most of them were proven to be lies and some are still inconclusive and very hard to prove one way or the other. After reading those official court documents, I don’t know why so many people here say he is as bad as she is. He might be, but there is still no proof other than her accusations and there’s a lot of proof that she is a nasty lying nutjob. I will gladly call him names when he actually does something half as bad as she continuously does, but for now he seems to be a much more stable one.
No. His lawyers occasionally refute something Kelly said or issue a brief statement to clarify.
Otherwise he keeps it private
I respect him a lot for keeping the kids as far away from this as possible
” attorney Wendy Murphy, who has been representing the children on behalf of Rutherford in federal court, said in a statement to PEOPLE. ”
This from PEOPLE? Are the writers and editors incapable of doing the most basic fact checking or do they just print whatever anyone tells them as truth? Murphy could be representing Rutherford or she could be representing the children but she cannot be representing the children on behalf of Rutherford. That’s a conflict. If she is representing the children, she is doing so under court order and would have absolutely nothing to do with Rutherford except through dealings with Rutherford’s attorney. Simple. Basic. Legal ethics.
Posted this below as well but the court appointed lawyer for the kids would not comment publicly
It’s someone on Kelly’s team
It’s hard for me not to think that she’s lying again, given her history. Which will surely help her case!
Are you kidding? She’s lied from the start. She recently stated that anyone who brought her kids back to her would be a hero – basically a kidnapping threat.
Re-read my post. That’s what I said.
Was it edited? It read differently at first. My bad. (I tried to edit my post but it’s not letting me now.)
I misread it at first as well. Yes she’s lying as she has been since the beginning
If this chick told me 2 + 2 was 4 I would check to make sure. She is made of lies.
When will someone finally make her get a psych eval? She is loony and wasting everyone’s time and money including the courts. Her public statements have made it clear she is attempting to cut the kids father out of the kids’ lives. Enough already. And how did she know what was in the email anyway? I’m willing to bet that email isn’t the sole source of information regarding his visa status.
Ans she keeps going on an on about how American part of these children’s heritage is somehow more important and how she as a mother should decide about everything and if the father dares to propose something – he is shady. Why 50/50 children wouldn’t have a German passport? Why wouldn’t any German parent ask for it? It’s logical for anyone but her and her nationalistic supporters. She makes it so hard to like her and believe her. She is a celebrity and this guy was a virtual unknown before this case – I don’t have any reason to care about him and he is somehow more believable than her. Ugh.
Please. There are Rules of Evidence concerning electronic evidence such as email, so proving or disproving the email’s authenticity is not that difficult to do. And the time to raise a challenge to evidence is at the trial during which it’s introduced, meaning her lawyers screwed up – again (in addition to the part where they thought getting him thrown out of the country would ensure she got custody of the kids).
Someday soon, a judge needs to put an end to this woman’s reign of judicial terror over her family. She’s unhinged.
WHO did she even hire? What are these people doing? It is absolutely not that hard to find out if that email was fake, not for a court.
Exactly! Besides, I’m sure he submitted other documentation regarding his deportation along with that email. I’m pretty sure he has some letter from the State Dept or INS. So he’s not basing his deportation on just that email. That’s why the judge ignored it. There’s no need to prove the validity of an email that essentially mimics the official documents from the Dept of State and INS.
Kelly you are better off getting someone to do this pro bono because your hired attorneys obviously are not seasoned enough to deal with your custody case. It’s like the Keystone Cops over there.
These two are a train wreck. I feel bad for their kiddos.
*She* is, there is no proof that *he* is.
We should all feel bad for the kids and for the father because he is trying. Unfortunately, he is dealing with crazy.
Just because there is no proof, doesn’t mean he isn’t. She’s just more vocal.
The biggest issue I have with him is he hasn’t reapplied for a visa, which is in violation of the original court order. It’s been 3 years and if this was only supposed to be temporary, the move to Monaco, then I can completely understand why she is so upset. He’s apparently moving to apply for sole custody in Monaco, too.
Why is it so hard for everyone to understand that his inaction to reapply for the visa has created this? Why isn’t he reapplying? Why did he apply for permanent residency in Monaco and move to switch the custody hearings to Monaco? Sorry, I don’t buy that he is squeaky clean and 100% behind reproach here.
Yes, I know it was Kelly’s attorney that notified the State Department about Daniel’s alleged activities. I keep forgetting to ask my colleagues that are immigration attorneys about whether the mere allegation of illegal activity would be able to do this or if you need something more. And just so it’s out there.. the State Department issued Daniel a letter that his visa was going to be revoked and he could apply for a hearing. He chose not to and instead left the country. He could have appealed it.. chose not to. He’s supposed to reapply for a visa and has chosen not to… but yet Kelly is the one that is crucified on here. Daniel can do no wrong.
@ Tammy
Why did she have him deported in the first place? why did she refuse for months to add his name to the birth certificate of THEIR daughter?
Who created this mess? Daniel, because he didn’t apply for a visa AFTER his ex had him deported? ya think?
@ Tammy
I think we should just all hold our collective breath until Kelly finally sends her court-ordered letter to the proper authorities recanting every allegation her team made to the State Dept/Immigration/whomever else about Daniel so that it would be easier for him if and when he reapplies for a visa.
Until she does that, I believe she’s happy that he’s not living in the US. After all, that was the plan, right?
There’s a reason the court gave him custody and allowed him to take the kids out of the country.
The petition to move jurisdiction of the custody hearings to Monaco is because the children have lived in Monaco for 3 years now. It’s not like Monaco would start over. There is a mirror custody agreement registered with the courts in Monaco. Daniel was ordered to do that as part of the original custody agreement. And he did. There really is zero reason for a family court in California to retain jurisdiction over this matter when the parents and children do not reside in California and haven’t for years.
IIRC, Daniel cannot reapply for a visa for 10 years. Also, even if he could reapply, it’s moot to reapply when Kelly hasn’t followed the judge’s order for her to draft an affidavit and submit it to the state department clearing up that her allegations toward Daniel were false, made up and baseless and done just to get him kicked out of the country so she could receive sole custody of the children.
@Tammy, if you look at the court docs, Kelly is also supposed to write a letter for Daniel, recanting her accusations–she hasn’t done it yet. Read BearcatLawyer’s posts here. She explains the intricacies of reapplying for a visa and why he might not even be able to yet.
As far as filing in Monaco–are you talking about the mirror order he was told to file by the California court? This is fairly standard in international custody arrangements, and he was following the custody agreement when he did so. His latest actions have been because of the statements Kelly has made to the press, and because of her attempt at using the CA court to force the kids back to the US.
There are no indications that he has attempted to cut Kelly out of the kids’ lives. Everything he’s done has been in reaction to her attempts to take the kids from him.
He might be the biggest asshole alive, but the only impartial evidence we have (the court records) indicates that he’s a loving father who just wants a relationship with his kids.
I do think he should reapply for the visa, even if he gets shut down. Which he will unless Kelly writes the letter which she has said she won’t because (this is me paraphrasing now) it makes her look bad and she might get into trouble. If the accusations are still there (weapons I think one was) he won’t be able to get it back so unless it’s bad to apply for reinstatement, he should do so. In my opinion. Then he can wave the letter around, say he tried, and there you go.
Tammy: you went quiet after the court papers were posted, but I guess you’d rather bury your head in the sand and keep harping on points that make no sense in light of the court documents.
Not to mention that court ordered help she has to give Daniel to get his visa back. A direct order that she refuses to comply with because it means she would have to sign a letter admitting wrongdoing and she doesn’t want to admit to any wrongdoing – her words. Where is your outrage there?
Please read our very own immigration clarification and comments pertaining to revoked visas that the excellent bearcatlawyer, an immigration lawyer, has been posting every thread, including this one.
As for your accusation that Daniel is shady, Kelly herself hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on Daniel, and he found nothing, nada, zilch……then again, he stopped the surveillance after 1300hrs when Kelly couldn’t pay the bill – he sued her – so I guess he sat tight for 1300hrs before unleashing his shady behaviour.
One thing is certain, that if Kelly had found even the smallest iota of dirt, she would have trumpeted it from the rooftops because that is the kind of person she is. Instead she’s settling for lies, lies, lies, and misrepresentation of the facts.
@Tammy– why is it so hard to understand that he can’t reapply UNTIL she fulfills her court mandated requirement to send a letter. Which she has refused to do. This is all very clear in the court documents.
Seriously, why is it so hard to admit a woman on her own can do bad things and make poor choices?
If he was the man she claims it’d have leaked out by now one way or another. As far as all evidence released so far he seems to be a good man trying to weather their battles while refusing to simply shut up and sign away his children.
The thing that makes me so sad about this is that this is all so public. They can’t realize that it is in everyone’s best interest to not fight this out blow-by-blow in the public eye.
It’s her doing this, not him, Stephanie.
Exactly bluhare, she is literally the only one talking to the press.
This isn’t merely against you Stephanie, but it’s strange to hear people say “I wish they’d both be mature. I wish they’d both put the children first.”, and there be no evidence he’s ever done anything but be mature and put the children first.
It’s like people are afraid to say, “Wow this woman is just being a jerk.”
The whole thing is such a mess, and I think both of them are just out to win, not actually do it’s best for the kids.
I did find it interesting that they lived in Los Angeles, when her job was filming in New York. Somehow she was able to commute thousands of miles then, but not now, when she could move to Europe to be closer to her kids?
She’s since moved to New York.
sounds like a pretty cool app though.
Team Kids.
I saw an article or an interview he did about the app, where he tells how he came up with it because he was on vacation with the kids and the little boy wanted to send a postcard to his mother. Don’t know much about the app though.
I was just thinking that. It’s a good idea. Not sure how profitable it would be, but it’s still an interesting idea.
Me too about the app!
About the App, it is called “blipcard”, and Daniel is the President and Founder. Reading the interview, it was really nice to hear how he came up with the idea. It’s very cute how he describes Helena’s contribution.
From the interview with Billy Rose:
Daniel Giersch: It makes me happy that you love Blipcard, especially since we created it to spread joy and positivity. And yes, my son came up with the idea. He and my daughter Helena love to take pictures with my iPhone, and one day he wanted to send Mum a real postcard with the picture he had just taken of himself. Additionally we were out on the sea and not near any shop to buy stamps and prefab postcards.
So Hermes said: Papa, you have a postal company and you also have an app company. Can you make an app so I can send Mum postcards from anywhere at anytime with my own pictures? So I said, sure, lets do it together, and we sat down and drew a plan for the app. Then Helena said: Papa, I want stickers, I love stickers, can you put stickers into the app, too? So we did that as well.
Here is the link to the interview…..It’s interesting to find out that Daniel has lived in Monaco since he was 25 years old. He sounds very tech-savvy and entrepreneurial.
http://www.theagencyre.com/2014/08/billy-rose-speaks-blipcard-founder-daniel-giersch/
I wrote about this on the last Kelly post and sent a letter to the editor of People as well. I do not know Kelly’s attorney or what immigration expert she consulted, but they are both morons. People also dropped the ball by not even trying to do basic fact-checking.That e-mail appears 100% legit to me, and I have seen hundreds of e-mails from U.S. consulates on a variety of topics over the past 18 years. I do not think it has been forged at all.
Embassies are diplomatic missions of one country in a foreign nation. They engage in a range of activities, like promoting economic opportunities or staging educational or artistic exhibitions. Consulates are divisions within embassies that deal with visas. A country can only have one embassy in a foreign land but may have multiple consulates. The U.S. occasionally only operates a consulate in some countries with which it does not maintain diplomatic relations.
If People had bothered to check http://www.usembassy.gov, they could have seen that the U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany consists of one Embassy in Berlin and multiple consulates (or consular sections in State Department vernacular since technically all consulates are operational divisions within embassies). There are three U.S. visa-issuing consulates in Germany: Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt. All process nonimmigrant visa applications, but only Frankfurt handles immigrant visa applications.
It appears from this e-mail that Daniel had his O-1 nonimmigrant visa revoked. An O-1 is a temporary work visa for people who have extraordinary ability in the arts, business, education, sciences, or athletics. Consulates typically track visas by the date the applications are filed, not approved, since approvals are very rarely instantaneous anymore. Depending on the background checks required. It could take weeks or months for some visas to be approved and issued. Also, by tracking the applications by the dates they are filed, they can determine whether someone has been waiting too long for a decision, since the majority of background checks take no more than 90 days.
Contrary to what Kelly’s idiot lawyer claimed in the article, Daniel is not eligible to travel visa-free to the U.S. for the rest of his life. While it is true that the Visa Waiver Program/ESTA allows citizens of Germany to travel to the U.S. for short-term (less than 90 days) visits for business or tourism without applying for a B-1/B-2 visa, the law for years has been that once a person has any U.S. visa application denied or an existing U.S. visa revoked, s/he can NEVER participate in the VWP/ESTA again. No exceptions. So when Kelly got this O-1 visa revoked, she effectively ensured he could never legally return to the U.S. in the future without first obtaining a new U.S. visa of some kind. Thus, the e-mail is very much a correct statement of the law.
So I will say it again: GO HOME, KELLY. YOU ARE DRUNK.
And to Kelly’s attorneys and People: next time, consult a real immigration lawyer and fact check before you make utter a{~#% of yourselves one more time.
And I too spent a couple of years in West Berlin in the 1980s, back when Germany was divided and the U.S. Embassy for West Germany was in Bonn. Fun times….
Thanks for the info. That makes it sound even more like KR is grasping at straws and throwing anything she can out there to get what she wants.
Thanks for all the info you’ve been providing on this!
You are welcome. Just doing my part to combat misinformation! 🙂
PEOPLE should also check on basic family law representation. No lawyer could represent the children on Kelly’s behalf.
I think that’s just her lawyer. She just calls her the lawyer for the kids. Because everything she does is for the kids (eye roll)
No court appointed lawyer for the kids would comment publicly
Hi bearcatlawyer… I was wondering since you seem knowledgeable about the law and immigration, if you could explain the large section in the statement of decision from the judge on this case that orders Daniel and Kelly to agree on an immigration consultant to help with the visa situation (by a certain date) and who would make sure that both sides were doing what the court ordered. The date has passed, but I’ve never heard where Kelly went back to the court in CA and complained about it not happening. Only going to courts in N.Y. whining about American citizens, blah blah. It seems like she could have made a case against him in CA over a year ago for not following through on court orders, but she didn’t.. which leads me to believe for some reason that she didn’t want to go back to the CA court. Thanks.. sorry about the long post
I read the order a while back, and I wasn’t sure exactly what the judge was trying to accomplish. It is not clear exactly why Daniel’s visa was revoked, and merely having Kelly and/or her attorney who notified the State Department on her behalf recant their accusations is not enough to fix this mess. Plus, Daniel may have a time bar preventing him from even submitting a new visa application, something that is also not clear since we do not have all the facts about his immigration situation. There is a big difference too between being eligible to file a visa application and actually having sufficient evidence to prove your eligibility and ultimately to get the visa approved and issued. Daniel, in effect, has to prove a negative (“I didn’t do all the horrible things Kelly’s attorney claimed”) in order to get a new visa. That is damn hard to do.
I am pretty sure Kelly is not following through on this aspect of the order because she does not want to have to fully recant her prior allegations against Daniel. But these are only my guesses.
Once a US visa has been revoked its almost impossible to get another one. I know someone who had there’s revoked because they overstayed by a few weeks (she’s a bit hopeless and it really wasn’t any deliberate attempt to defraud anyone, just a young scatter brain traveller). That was over a decade ago and she’s never been able to get another one, despite engaging rather pricey immigration lawyers, who told her all along that it would be difficult if not impossible. In the end her partner moved here because they got tired of all the time apart and it got expensive for him to keep travelling here to be together.
Just to add to this, you can go to almost any European travel forum and you’ll find endless threads from people whose ESTA status was summarily revoked and who can’t get a visa – but usually don’t know why. As bearcatlawyer notes, people are often asked to prove a negative. They’re often left in ignorance as to what exactly is the problem. There’s often erroneous data-matching vis a vis no-fly lists. People are denied visas on the basis of hearsay (what seems to have happened here) and can’t prove the negative to get the decision reversed. Yadda ad infinitum.
Outside of the US, US visa services really do have a draconian reputation (bit like ours in the UK if you try to claim asylum).
We’re lucky to have you posting here
What Audrey said.
Debra: i’m not a lawyer, but there is evidence that Kelly refused to co-operate in that process because doing so would have meant admitting that the visa revocation was based on her false information and she didn’t want to admit to that.
Further, as bearcatlawyer has said in the past, there is a time frame given by the state dept before you can re-apply. Time frame depends on the gravity of reasons for the visa revocation.
If that is also another reason why he hasn’t applied yet, it makes the court ordered action impossible since it can’t be actioned before the time frame given by the state dept.
The time frame can be years or even a complete ban. The seriousness of the accusations levelled against Daniel would mean his time frame is very long or even an outright ban.
You are very kind to say so and have definitely made me feel better (kind of having a rough day here thanks to one of my bull-headed clients…grrr). I really just want to make sure my fellow Celebitches have ACCURATE information about U.S. immigration law and understand that reputable, knowledgeable immigration attorneys would NEVER make any of the arguments that KR and her lawyers are making. U.S. immigration law and its application in individual cases are extremely complex matters, and there is way too much misinformation out there on the interwebs.
Although I will admit that I do enjoy a good projection or fantasy, facts in situations like this really are appreciated, bearcat. Thank you.
I’ll call you if I ever get deported. 🙂
BearcatLawyer, do Kelly or her lawyer face charges for knowingly providing false information to Immigrations? Could either of them actually do time?
@Lady D, I’m curious about the repercussions myself. Should that lawyer not have faced some kind of sanctions for his actions? It seems like that would violate some ethical rules at the very least.
Lady D and Samtha:
Believe me, the thought of filing complaints with some state bars, the federal courts, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review against Kelly’s attorneys has crossed my mind. I can think of quite a few major violations, chief of them being lack of candor towards the tribunal. The trouble is that I likely have no real standing to file these complaints – I am just an interested observer of these proceedings.
That being said, I am VERY TEMPTED to e-mail Mr. Giersch and offer my services pro bono if he is interested in filing complaints. He clearly does have standing to complain, and I would very much love to write some nasty cease and desist letters on the immigration issues at least. But I do not believe in interfering with a person’s existing legal counsel, and his lawyers seem to know what they are doing.
So instead I will merely continue to rant here. 🙂
@bearcatlaywer: thanks for your detailed statement on this – which I can confirm.
As a student my sister stayed longer than the 90 days you are allowed to stay with a tourist visa. When she left the States, this was entered into the system. As a result she can no longer participate in the VWP/ESTA (this is forever!).
Every time she now wants to go to the states, she needs to go to the US embassy first to get a special visa.
So judging from her experience it’s quite easy to get your visa revoked…
Thank you for the clarification. I already suspected it’s the way you described but couldn’t provide any proof. The more I read about this case, the more I suspect that she got her lawyers on a bargain – two barely literate ones for the price of one truly competent. They regularly provide her with tools to dig her own grave.
I’m pretty sure if she tried to hire a big name family law attorney, they would have told her to suck it up and just move to Monaco. Obviously she doesn’t want to hear that so she got some clowns fresh out of law school.
Yep. Any traveller who’s ever gone to an embassy to get a lost/stolen passport or to do pretty much anything could drive a truck through this ridiculous nonsense. She’s a flat out loon and her lawyers are working a PR angle because they know they have zero legal one.
@ BearcatLawyer
Thanks for reposting the information you had from the previous article. It’s good that people are informed and the ‘facts’ from Kelly’s people and People are corrected.
Thank you for posting this. I wanted an immigration lawyer’s take on this.
Bearcatlawyer, you’re my hero, I love your posts on this. I hope to one day be a misinformation combatant of your caliber.
Sincerely, a law student
Thank you for the correct legal analysis! It has bothered me a lot that some people just jumped all over the Kelly bandwagon because the “poor mom is denied her kids” or the “poor kids can’t live in America.” There is a legal path for everything. Things are done for a reason. If people bothered to read the court documents, they wouldn’t be so sympathetic to this woman.
I’ve worked for attorneys for decades and it wouldn’t surprise me if they just rolled over and did what she wanted, even if they knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of her winning. (Hey, it’s billable hours.) She’s a harridan. She probably barks orders at her lawyers. And she will NEVER write that letter to help him get his visa back, and it has nothing to do with her fear of getting into trouble. The last thing she wants is for his visa to be restored. She doesn’t want to co-parent, not here and not in Monaco. If I were Daniel, I’d do whatever I had to do legally to keep those kids from going to the States for their summer vacation. He will never get them back. I wonder why his lawyers aren’t demanding that she have a court-ordered psych evaluation. She could be a danger to her children. She’s one twisted, hateful b*tch.
This is just part of her maniacal smear campaign against her ex. There is absolutely no sane reason for anybody to “forge” such an e-mail and its contents are obviously true from other sources. Why fake it? She’s such a liar, and she hires liars. I can’t imagine that a reputable lawyer would 1) be so stupid as to believe the claim and 2) go along with using that argument in court. Really, they’ll be kicked out of court on this one. No intelligent judge would believe it. I suppose that’s why she’s been judge-shopping, looking for an ignorant one. So far, she’s just found ignorant magazines like People who don’t even bother searching the web for information (would have taken them a couple of minutes).
The Embassy in Berlin is relatively new, only existing in that form since 2008. Before then the Embassy was in the former capital city of Bonn and there was a consulate in Berlin. This is why the Berlin Embassy is still widely referred to as the Consulate. Also an embassy has a more extensive diplomatic role, while consulates primarily deal with such things as visas and passports etc. That’s why the e-mail refers to the consulate (department of the larger embassy now). It is very appropriate that a consular officer would be the one to relay information about the visa revocation. That’s not something the Ambassador would do.
We need InTouch Weekly to get on this case pronto. I can’t believe I’m holding ITW as the arbiter of real investigative journalism!
LOL why would anyone use her for fame?!? What good fame would knoone get from all this mess with, at best, an E or F list actress?
Right?? And he hasn’t sought any kind of attention since their divorce, so that claim just makes her seem even crazier.
Before this, i honestly only knew her from the Santa Claus movie. The Mrs Claus one
Please tell me that daily beast article is really a script she’s working on for a lifetime movie? Mysterious German couple who disappeared, strange foreign waitress who May be named Carla, whose kids are in Kuwait, pressuring Kelly to go out with this man… unnatural relationship with his mother… on and on… and this is supposed to help convince a judge ANYWHERE that this woman is stable and would be a good influence on their children?
LOL IKR! I attempted to post a comment on that dailykitten site but pshaaaaaaaawwww there just arent enough minutes in a day for me to waste. Clearly, that dana chick is earning money as a journalist under false pretenses. How the hell does one get a gig like that.
Anyhooo……kelly painted herself as such a dumb dumb broad. She said she was 36 and anxious to get married and have kids…..no mention of a first husband and how she dished him dirt, She was so anxious that she took the first man who paid her any attention, who was so strange and remained strange even up to the time she married him, And poor dumb innocent kelly, swallowed everything he told her even tho there were ‘red flags.’ And dumb dana just swallowed everything kelly told her with no fact checking. smdh
Both parents, but from her behaviour more Kelly better hope their children don’t grow up resenting them. To trash the other parent in front of a child is bad enough, but with the internet it will be there forever. How are Kelly and Daniel going to deal with their children finding a article online about this nasty custody battle and the resulting questions? Just a sad situation because there are no winners in custody battles. But plenty of battle wounds that never completely heal.
Well, he for one won’t have to answer questions about why he went around trashing their mother, because he doesn’t do it. Maybe he will have to answer “daddy, why does mommy hate you so much?” If they ever ask her any questions, I can just see her yanking on her hair as she yells BECAUSE YOU’RE AMERICAN CITIZENS, THAT’S WHY!
DEBRA:
OMG, I laughed so hard at this….I LOVE the picture you just painted in my head of Kelly yanking at her hair!!!
In my version, her eyes are also crossed as she yells her answer.
…How will Daniel deal with the children finding an article in which she trashed him?
Um…well, I guess by explaining to his kids what they’ll likely grow to see for their own two eyes. That their mother is nuts.
This woman is batshit crazy. Kids are probably better off with their father.
Litigious: 1. concerned with lawsuits or litigation; 2. Unreasonably prone to go to law to settle disputes; 3. Too eager to sue someone in a court of law: tending or likely to engage in lawsuits; 4. The adjective form of litigation, the act of suing someone in court. If a person is called litigous that means they tend to sue people, maybe excessively.
One lawsuit does not make him litigous. I clicked on the link and read the article. He sued Google because it tried to trademark Gmail. Daniel owns the rights to a slogan that contains the word G-mail. He won because of the similarities between the two.
Google wanted an EU-wide trademark. Daniel protected his rights.
Plainly put unless several other examples can be provided calling Daniel litigous is wrong.
There’s an article somewhere about him suing small businesses and individuals in Germany who were also using Gmail name in some capacity. One person claims that none of them even knew about the trademark until they received a cease and desist letter, then ended up having to pay fines after being sued. If they received cease and desist letters, and ended up being sued, they obviously didn’t stop what they were doing. Daniel couldn’t very well overlook all these other people using the Gmail name while fighting a multi billion dollar company over the use of it. Anyway, I wonder how much Google ended up paying for it since the case has been settled. Probably alot more than the 250,000 they offered him to begin with.
I agree. He can’t sue one entity and ignore everyone else. The use of the word litigous seems disingenuous to me. Perhaps I’m thinking of the usage incorrectly but I would use it refer to a person or entity that will sue over any perceived slight. In this case he appears to involve the courts only when it involves the use of a trademark to which he has legal rights. If he sues one he has to sue all. Not necessarily fair to a small business owner but perhaps from a legal point of view (I am not involved in the legal profession in any capacity) the lawsuits show impartiality.
Thank you for pointing that out. This entire situation seems to be filled to the brim with cray, with endless misstatements and word twisting bleeding from Kelley’s mouth out into almost every aspect of the media circus surrounding her custody battle. Which is exactly how Kelley likes it. Her personality type thrives on drama and conflict – all the more reason to keep the children with their father IMO.
It is not possible to falsify an email from a US Consulate, unless she is accusing him of hacking into the US government networks and in that case he has bigger problems.
I don’t understand her problem with the kids living overseas…they are half German citizen, half American. My cousin was with a guy from Denmark for a few years and when they broke up, they decided the kids would live half the year in Denmark and half the year in the US to experience both cultures. Thats the risk you take when you have children with someone from a different country. And its not like Germany/Monaco is some third world country they are being subjected to in dire poverty and lack of freedom.
I just wish she would try to be less aggressive in the press (as in nasty) because at the end of the day, europeans are usually much more chill in general and she will always come off looking like the crazy one.
I’m American, living abroad. Married with a daughter here. That’s why I’ve followed this case so much.
I personally would not do 6 months each. But before deciding to have a baby, i thought hard about the consequences if we split up. I knew that i could not simply go back to the U.S. and my family. My daughter needs to have her dad in her life.
That’s what upsets me about this case. The total disregard for dad and their dual citizenship. America is not more important than everywhere else. And those kids need both parents to be civil and co-parent. No matter what, my husband would never f up my immigration
I am really sick of this woman’s crazy train. Who invites kidnapping of their own kids???? I think she badly misjudged public opinion and the courts would see her as a sympathetic, wronged American mother. They might have in the beginning but she’s long past any credibility. I don’t even think the issue for her anymore is the kids–it’s WINNING and punishing her ex. Once the kids were thriving in a stable environment in another country, why not just move there to be near them? It’s not like she’s got some hot career going, but if she did, just remember the Jolie-Pitts live in France for much of the year!
Thankfully the courts have seen right through her and her behaviour, but public opinion is still on her side. There were a lot of people on here defending her and blaming him for everything, but once the actual court papers were posted those people have disappeared. If you look on other sites there are many comments in favour of her because she went all “the kids need to be in America!!”
This woman is friggin nutty. Thankfully the people who stick up for her do not have actual power because they are ignorant of what actually went on in this case and of the law.
It makes no sense for him to forge an email with factual information. If I was a lawyer I would be embarrassed walking around sounding like a moron and spewing incorrect facts all the time. Do they not have people in their offices to check on these matters before they start running their mouths.
So this is legal? Anybody can make claims to the media about another person without any evidence? Are there no consequences to what she has been doing to that man’s reputation?
What a sick human being.
This is what is frightening to me and should be demoralizing to any journalism student today who will be operating in a world in which nothing they learned in journalism school about ethics and fatchecking and truth telling and credibility and sourcing has any use to them whatsoever.
The only criterion for practising ‘journalism’ today is that your stories must be controversial – no matter whether its true or not. smdh
Aw. I thought my time to shine had come at long last, as I work in a Embassy, and was about to roll up my sleeves and tell everyone about consulates, consular sections, high commissions, embassies…I had a PowerPoint presentation done up and all.
But CB has clarified everything in the post, and the comments are really informative too, so, y’know… no need for lil ol me…
Carry on. I’ll just have a seat… 😞
Don’t worry! Your time shall come! Till then just nod your head wisely knowing you see through her bs like its Windex on a spanking new pane of glass.
Don’t worry. Knowing our dear ol’ Kelly, you will have plenty of opportunities to shine. The topic of Daniel’s visa comes back like a boomerang, even though everyone, who bothered fact-checking knows she made him lose it and his chances of getting a new one are small to non-existent.
Don’t put that Power Point presentation away! You can make the rounds of online tabloids and comment sections, where folks who actually believe her nonsense hold sway. Consider it as the latest form of a workshop tour.
Im sure Kelly consulted compitent lawyers who are exremely knowledgable of family law who gave her sound advice about her situation. Unfortunatly its not unbelievable Kelly ignored all sane reasoning because she want complete control of the siuation and went with the lawyers who told her what she wanted to her as long as she paid the bills.
I’m sure Kelly’s lawyers are banging their heads against the wall everytime she opens her trap.
I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about this case, and especially, why the marriage imploded and Rutherford’s animosity toward her ex. I think of Somerset Maugham’s description (and he knew and lived there) of Monaco, “a sunny place for shady people.” This case is fascinating, somehow, it reminds me Henry James’ “The Portrait of a Lady”, Europeans of a certain lineage (usually aristocratic) jaded and parasitic. preying on a wealthy and unsuspecting young American heiress. I read the Daily Beast article and Rutherford says she paid most of the bills. Her ambivalence colors her description of their courtship. There were no questions on why she was so determined to have sole custody. why she refused to put Giersh’s name on her daughter’s birth certificate. The mysterious waitress who “pressured” her to date Giersh, that he wanted to “destroy” her. the odd relationship between Giersh and his mother. It’s fascinating, all of it. The European puppetmaster & the hardheaded American, perhaps, paranoid. Which is it?
Rich Europeans go to live in Monaco so that they don’t have to pay much tax. It really is as simple as that. Nothing to do with puppetmasters ripping the bodices of young pure American heiresses and various devilish grouping of shadiness, for heavens sakes! Deary me.
(Caveat: unless you think rich people should pay plenty of tax, like me, and regard the off-shorers as shady for that reason, like me.)
Regarding the birth certificate issue, if you look at the court docs, Kelly outright stated that she did that because she was “hurt.”
She obviously has no problem smearing this guy, so you can bet if there was anything more than that, she would have told the court.
From Reuters 9.13.12:
“The Berlin consulate is in the southwest of the city, separate from the main embassy building in central Berlin.”
………………….
As for the “litigious” comment, Daniel had the trademark on “gmail.” So of course he’s going to protect it. When businesses start using it, then it was their own lack of diligence for not making sure it wasn’t already trademarked or if they did know but used it anyways, it was a game a chicken to see what the owner, Daniel, would do about it.
That sounds as though in 2008, the Berlin consulate (now a department of the Embassy) stayed in its original location when the Embassy shifted from Bonn to Berlin. Why move offices if you don’t need to do so?
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t metadata clear whatever the controversy is? I thought the US was using a lot of this electronic evidence, etc. since a while back and that lawyers and judges needed to be more savvy about this? I’m confused here.
Yep.
Additionally I’m sure the Consulate could be ordered to provide an offical/notarized copy or affidavit of the e-mail.
If Daniel wants to protect his trademark he has to use all efforts to stop others from using it, small business or large. He can’t cherry-pick whom he sues for infringement. If he sued Google and they could point to other businesses he didn’t try to stop from using “gmail,” the court could conclude that he waived his rights completely. Litigious is not a fair description if this is all they are talking about.
I’ve always felt there was something really shady about him and still do. I even believe some of the stuff she said in the Daily Beast article with his shadiness. Unlike many on here that only like to see black and white when they don’t like someone like her, I tend to still see both sides. BUT she is a certifiable vindictive ex who brought so much of this on herself. I still question him big time,. But that doesn’t mean he’s a bad father and he shouldn’t be excluded from their lives. She tried to play hardball getting rid of him and screwed herself ultimately. I really don’t have any emotion towards these two and don’t care where the kids end up. I understand her pain, but hard to sympathize with her. I think something is off or underhanded about him and his life, but she married him and should have put up with him for the kids’ sake, not try to alienate them and suffered the consequences I feel for the kids is who I feel for, neither of the two adults as long as they both get to see the children no matter where they live. I think, though, he hasn’t worked on getting his visa back, as the court requested, as a legal strategy. It gives him a leg up on keeping the children in Monaco.
Go back in the posts concerning this.
People were overwhelmingly siding with her until they informed themselves.
Bearcatlawyer – Thankyou for posting both documents & shedding much needed clarity on the custody situation. Thankyou to everyone else who has shared their knowledge & experience on immigration! As they say you learn something new everyday 😊
I’m no expert but the knowledge/documents on here has helped me understand this situation hell of alot better. After reading the second document I’m surprised the court hasn’t revoked her share of custody! She has literally taken the p***. So many times.
The statements from his lawyers in response to her accusations are pretty dignified & concise. He seems to have the better set of lawyers. Her lawyers lack strategy & are throwing what they can that will stick. It’s just clutching at straws right now.
Going by the documents Daniel wants to wholeheartedly co-parent peacefully with the mother of his children. He mentions her positively, bought his little girl a gift that he wrote was from her mother on the gift & he makes an active effort for the kids to have a relationship with her. She has shot herself in the foot, so many times!
If that was me in that situation as upsetting as it maybe to have my kids halfway across the world, I hope I would be happy that my kids are being looked after emotionally aswell as everyday needs. I would be happy the dad wants to make an effort to stay in the kids lives.
Whether he is a good person or a bad person that is up in the air. Going by the documents, there lack of media fanfare & his statements via his lawyers, he is a good parent to his children so is Kelly as acknowledged by the court. It’s a damn shame on those kids she will not let her bitterness go for the sake of her children.
As for the visa issue in the second document didn’t it say she didn’t submit a supporting statement for his application?
Just read the Daily Beast article, and after I finished sighing at the purple prose, COMPLETE lack of fact checking, and overall awful writing, I realized something.
Any ‘Royal Pains’ fans in the house? Remember Divya and her unplanned child? Remember the weird mother and the ‘leave the child with us’ storyline?
Yep, KR recycled a Royal Pains story arc for this interview–lifted it nearly whole, so far as I can tell!
Wonder, if we looked hard enough, if we’d find from where she plagiarized the shady waitress ‘with kids in an Arab country!’ (because *that’s* clear proof of the waitress’ untrustworthyness and UNAMUURICANISM!)
I had never heard of Royal Pains, so looked it up to see what it was about. I find it funny that it was set in the Hamptons, where Kelly spends alot of time and I believe had/may still have a home. And that one of the recurring characters was a wealthy German businessman. It’s just weird.
I lived in Germany for a few years too, but I do seem to recall that there are special consular services available in the Berlin embassy offices. I knew a few people who were very connected and they seemed to be able to get things done, anywhere. Not in a sneaky way — there were simply always procedures available at a certain level to make something happen.
So maybe that’s how consular services of some sort can indeed occur in Berlin as needed?