Father Loses Bid to Change Guilty Plea in Son’s Abduction
A man whose appearance on “The Phil Donahue Show” to pitch for fathers’ rights led to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by his ex-wife has lost an appeals court bid to withdraw a guilty plea in the abduction of his son.
The Colorado Court of Appeals last week rejected Wayne R. Anderson’s effort to withdraw the plea to a charge of violating a custody order when he abducted the 9-year-old boy, Eland, over whose custody Anderson has had a long dispute with his former wife, Willow Lynn Cramlet.
He took the boy in March, 1979, and later appeared twice--in disguise--with Donahue, discussing fathers’ rights.
Cramlet won a $5.9-million judgment from the company that produced the show, Multi-Media Program Productions Inc. of Cincinnati, because the staff baby-sat her son while Anderson was interviewed but failed to turn him over to authorities.
However, a new trial has been ordered over the damages because U.S. District Judge Jim Carrigan ruled that the initial award was made by a jury presuming the woman would be deprived of her son’s companionship for the rest of her life, but the boy and his mother were reunited in May, 1983.
Anderson was arrested in Tulsa on May 18, 1983, and nine days later made a plea bargain with prosecutors.
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