Judges Are a Girl’s Best Friend When Extortion’s Afoot

The second part of a true story of an expat’s agony and defeat is supposed to end today. The Gringo has to pay his girlfriend to get his house back.

This poor man was thrown out of his house one evening for raising his voice to his girlfriend’s adult son, a punk rock type known to use hard drugs like crack cocaine. The expat spent the night in a very cold and uncomfortable jail cell. In the lockup, he had to listen to his girlfriend yuck it up with the police officers who arrested him.

The morning after, the police took him in front of a judge who gave him a cold shoulder and would not listen to his side of the story. Ever since that awful day the poor man has had to rent another place and fight for his rights. In the hotel where he is now living, there are two other men in the same predicament.

Rights? What rights? No one at the court ever listened to him. The judge set a preliminary hearing for Sept. 27, but on the day of the audience, the judge canceled the hearing and set a new date of Nov 1. This was maddening for the expat. He had arranged to travel back to the United States to accompany his elderly mother through some medical treatments and did not expect to be back in Costa Rica Nov. 1. His father passed away last year leaving his aging mother alone. He wrote a petition to the judge asking for an earlier court date. What a mistake. The judge set the hearing back even more to Dec. 4, three long months from the date he was forced out of his own home by a live-in girlfriend.

The expat could do nothing but wait for Dec. 4 so he could have his date in court and, hopefully, an honest hearing of the facts. He wanted to be well prepared so he asked the court if he could have a translator. Officials at the court told him he could bring any translator in whom he had confidence.

Dec. 4, the Gringo arrived an hour early at the court well dressed in his best business suit. He also had a female attorney to represent him and a translator he trusted. His girlfriend arrived at the last minute with her son dressed for the event hiding his shaved head and Mohawk haircut under a baseball cap.

The judge appeared at around 10 a.m. for the scheduled 9:30 a.m. hearing only to say she had another case and would have to postpone the hearing again until after the holidays. The court system closes this year from Dec. 21 to Jan. 7. The expat’s lawyer insisted on a hearing. The judge conceded but said everyone would need to wait three hours for her to finish the other case. Everyone decided to wait.

The girlfriend’s attorney walked over to the expat’s lawyer and gave him a file. He said, “Does your client want his house back?” If so he has to pay everything in this file and in addition pay a cash settlement of four figures, said the attorney.

The Gringo’s lawyer told him the terms to get his house back. He thought about it long and hard. He was sick of living in a hotel for three months. He had driven by his house a couple of times only to find his girlfriend let the grass and weeds grow ruining his gardens. The property in general looked completely unkempt and abandoned. One of his dogs was gone. He later learned someone had stolen it.

The judge finally called the parties to begin the hearing. She told the Gringo that his translator was not on the court list of approved translators. He said, “I was told by officials here I could bring a translator of my choosing.” The judge said, “Sorry, whoever you talked to was mistaken, I will move this audience to February.”

The expat was broken. He was going to have to wait two more months for another court date. He decided to agree to his girlfriend’s terms and pay her off.

Today’s domestic violence law in Costa Rica is one-sided, created to protect women and only women. In many cases, women abuse the law and in some instances use it to steal from men.

A man could take a woman home for one night and get thrown out of his house by that person. The reason for this is, the man has no voice, and the police, when they arrive, will not listen to him in most cases. Their instructions and training mandate them to remove the male — period.

Many expat men come to Costa Rica to find peace and tranquility and end up shooting themselves in the foot. Others come for the wrong reasons.

If a man is going to become romantically involved with a woman, he should probably think twice about inviting her to his home.

In a longer-term relationship, any man — married or unmarried — living with a woman in Costa Rica should know the domestic violence law, Law 8589 “The Penalization For Violence Against Women,” like the back of his hand.

There may be another chapter to this story. The Gringo involved now has a new girlfiend.