Woman who sparked Amber Alert pleads not guilty to kidnapping - Boston Globe
The children’s mother, Bruna Gomes, pushed her way into the home, pepper-sprayed Garcia and took her 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter as they screamed for her to stop, officials said. Bail was set at $25,000. Gomes’s lawyer, Amber Cohen, painted her as a mother who felt she had exhausted all ways to see her children. Gomes, whose lawyer said she has custody of the children, had tried and failed to gain access to them through the police and the courts, Cohen said. She was essentially told, “See you in January,” Cohen said. “She had tried to use every method, up until yesterday, to legally obtain those children,” Cohen said. Cohen also disputed some of the prosecutors’ allegations, including that Gomes impersonated a police officer. Bruno Coelho, the children’s father, said he does not buy Gomes’s defense. “If she had all the legal rights then she should have just went in there and claimed to be herself, not a police officer,” he said in a phone interview after the trial. After threatening Garcia, Gomes allegedly ushered her children through the same doorway she had pepper-sprayed, according to the police report. Source: www.bostonglobe.com
