Custody hearing on toddler postponed

A court hearing to determine whether a 2-year-old Riverside County foster child should be united with her father -- a convicted sex offender -- or become eligible for adoption was postponed Wednesday.

The adoption of the special-needs girl, named Heaven, had been recommended by her county social worker when a Riverside County Juvenile Court commissioner halted the process last month to consider uniting the girl with her father.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the commissioner did not make a custody decision and continued the hearing, according to people familiar with the case.

The hearing was closed to the public.

Heaven’s father, Thomas Joseph Briere, pleaded guilty in January 2002 to raping a developmentally disabled 22-year-old woman incapable of giving consent, court records show.

Briere also pleaded guilty to having sex with her 16-year-old sister. He was sentenced to one year in jail and four years probation.

Reached Wednesday by telephone, Briere said he wasn’t free to talk about the case anymore.

“They put a gag order on me,” said Briere, 32, of Moreno Valley.

Earlier, Briere had said he desperately wanted to win custody of his daughter, who was born with severe heart defects, a cleft lip and palate and mild cerebral palsy.

Heaven was born Jan. 5, 2005, to a Hesperia woman. Three weeks later, a court ordered the girl into foster care after the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services determined that both parents had a limited grasp of the baby’s medical needs, court records show.

In March, Heaven’s social worker recommended that the court clear the way for her adoption by terminating Briere’s parental rights, court records show. Her mother’s rights already had been terminated.

But at a May 8 hearing in Riverside County Juvenile Court, the commissioner ordered social workers to consider giving the father a chance to unite with the girl, Briere said.

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sara.lin@latimes.com