Suspect Begins Hunger Strike in Custody Case
The woman who posed for seven years as the mother of a kidnapped California girl began a hunger strike Monday to win support for her campaign to regain custody of the child.
Nilza Gierbolini Guzman started the protest one day before she is to go on trial on charges of falsifying the child’s birth certificate.
Gierbolini said she was trying to force a meeting with officials from Puerto Rico’s family department, whose help she wants in regaining custody of 8-year-old Crystal Anzaldi from the girl’s biological father.
A judge in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, awarded Jeffrey Anzaldi custody of Crystal on Feb. 10. The next day, Crystal left Puerto Rico for her father’s home in Banks, Ore.
Crystal disappeared from her parents’ home on Coronado Island near San Diego in 1990. She was discovered in Puerto Rico last year by officials investigating child abuse allegations against Gierbolini.
Gierbolini, who has denied the child abuse allegations, lived in San Diego at the time of the girl’s disappearance. She says a bartender asked her to take care of the girl because the baby’s mother had died.
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