welcome back to prime news on hln. i can't imagine the helpless, hopeless feeling of a dad behind bars. he divorced his first wife, a japanese native. they have two kids together. his ex agreed to take the kids to japan. they didn't return. they didn't show up for the first day of class. the dad went to court, got full custody of the kids. dad flew to japan. while his ex-wife walked the

kids to school, dad grabbed the kids and drove off. police arrested him. he's violating the law in japan, she is in the u.s. we'll take your calls, 877-tell-hln. jeremy morley. thanks for being with us. jeremy, help us understand, what was christopher's plan in going to japan? >> i don't know what his plan was. he wanted to see the kids. the kids were stolen from him. unfortunately, they were taken to japan. japan is not a member of the treaty that returns abducted children. japan has never, ever once ordered the return of an abducted child. chris went by himself to see his kids and try to get access to them. >> what charge is he facing

there? >> he's being accused of kidnapping his own children. >> wow. >> he's sitting in jail now, we're trying to get him out of there. it's a tough battle. >> i can't imagine this nightmare. let's bring in vickie. what options does he have? >> it's a nightmare. deja vu. number one, it's fight. get the best attorney out there. he seems like he has a great attorney here. at the end of the day, he has to understand the battle he is up a again against. it's knowing japanese law. he's trying to make change n. japan, there's never been one case reported that the supreme court or lower courts enforced a custody dispute when one parent, a nonforeign parent gets custody. he has a major problem. we never want to give up hope there.'s a major battle on his

hands. >> the view of divorce and custody in japan is different. that's the obstacle here. >> it's totally different. the idea of sharing custody is foreign to society. in their society, one parent or the other, usually, the mother gets it kids. dad may occasionally see them. the idea of two parents being involved in the life of their children is alien to their way of life. i'm educating the criminal lawyer we have selected for chris in this peculiar thing where mom and dad are allowed to be parents to kids. that's a different system. so many kids are being abducted to japan. it's a terrible case and a tip of the iceberg. from what we gathered, not a surprise. the mom threatened to do this before. listen to chris before he went

to japan talking about past threats. let's listen. >> it was a direct question. do you intend to live here? do you want to live in tennessee? her answer was deflected. it was -- i remember she said, i think that the kids will be happy if i'm happy. she couldn't answer yes or no. >> okay, so the threat is there. we look at this, if the threat was there, how was she allowed to take the kids to japan for summer vacations. >> we don't know if they were returned or asked to be held in the court systems. very difficult. how did she get out of the country. you usually need two parents signatures on a document to leave the country. a lot of questions unanswered. a lot are looking saying this could happen to me. filing a police report. there's a risk going to the authorities and getting the court orders.

unfortunately, japan does not recognize u.s. court orders. it's an unfortunate part of this case. >> let's get a call in. tiffany is with us in florida. >> caller: hi, how are you doing? i think it's crazy. i'm a mother and women just have so much pow irand i know that's already determined that we are the bilogical parent, at least one of us. i think it's absurd that she could leave the country and, you know, just leave her children. look at all the missing kids out there. we have so many young kids and i just, i don't think it's fair she should be able to go over there and do that. >> no. tiffany, thanks for the call. we were showing the time line there, that mom makes this threat, but a judge intervened, basically. help us out to understand this. the incentive for her to stay at not go to japan was losing child

support and alimony, is that right? >> she might lose that. she was allowed to go for a visit. she went. she originally went to japan for a visit. i begged the court through an affidavit that i prepared. if the kids are taken there, they will never come back. they did come back for a week. there was no additional court order. what she did, what the mother did was secretly sold the car, packed up the belongings. while dad had the kids, she was making the arrangements. she took them to japan and they have been there since. >> wow. >> too late. the court in tennessee said, well, now the kids have been abducted, we'll do something about it. they ordered her to return and they gave sole custody to dad. it's too late. >> you saw it coming.

>> yeah. >> let's take a break. we'll hear more from the father who is heart broken in jail.

when johnny carson said good-bye to his last guest, it was bette midler. tonight, she'll be the first guest on the "joy behar show."

the "joy behar show" premiering here tonight on hln. a father is heart broken. christopher savoie. he's behind bars because he tried to get his kids back. let's listen to the heart broken dad. he wants the simple things, again. >> never be on the ball field, again. the one thing you can't ever get back. they could give me money or anything, but they cant take back they time. next week, i won't be playing with him. i won't be playing catch with him. just won't. that week won't happen again. >> he's right. jeremy is here with us. he's the attorney for chris savoie.

let's talk about options here. can the u.s. government get involved is that in the cards for us, or not? >> it will help. we are asking the government to do whatever they can. it's a long shot. the government has been trying to get japan to sign the convention and return kids for years and years and years. the pressure is higher in the last years. the number of abductions has been increasing. canada has been involved, england, australia. we are trying to get, really, an international group going to really get japan to change their law. i think they have to change their attitudes toward parenting. but, what we can do in the short term, we have state arrest warrant. we expect to get a federal arrest warranty, if she leaves it country. she may do what a lot of the japanese women do when they take the kids back to what they call

home. she may stay there the rest of her life. >> wow. >> the may never see the kids, again. >> how are the kids doing? any word? >> we don't have word. there's no sysystem. there's no effective family law system that functions there. the kids are with the mother and grandparents. >> inlaws. >> as far as we know. dad is completely cut off. >> okay. >> it's terrible. >> let's get another call in shannon is on the line with us. >> caller: how you doing? i think the father trusted the mother too much. the same thing happen to me. i had to get custody of my son. i hope he gets the children back. he just trusted the mother and thought she would bring them back. >> chris was suspicious, right? you saw it coming. you went to court and said the trips to japan had to stop. she's made the threat, right?

>> a lot of judges don't realize how serious it is. they think japan is a very advanced country, which it is. i love japan. i have enormous amounts of dealings in japan. in this e spect, they are 100 years old. judges don't appreciate the danger. we don't have exit controls in this country. you can leave the country without any policeman checking your paper, nobody looking at your papers except the airlines. all they care about is do you have the papers that allow you to go with your children to another country. we should be checking people, not only when they come in here, but when they leave. so we can stop this. >> makes sense. jeremy, thanks again. vickie, appreciate you on the show as well. coming up, how is this,

"kate plus 8." sit going t make you watch? when is this going to end. i'm going to bring in jane velez-mitchell to talk about i .

welcome back. i can't get over the amount of people lining up to support roman polanski. politicians, big names in hollywood. the man had sex with a 13-year-old. faced charges of drugging her and raper her. he pled guilty with having unlawful sex with a minor. the judge changed his mind on the deal. the day of sentences, polanski takes off to france. he was arrested by american and swiss authorities over the weekend. they say he will fight

extradition to the u.s. here he is talking act his lust for young women in "roman polanski, wanted and desired." take a listen. >> i like young women, let's put it this way. i think most of men do, actually. >> the question stands on -- doesn't it? >> yes. you come to a concrete case for which i have been behind bars. that's what you want to talk about. but, what would you like me to tell you? >> we'll take your calls as alwayses. here to talk about it, welcome back, lisa bloom. also, russell, entertainment reporter. all right. lisa, just listening to the old interview. he's almost justifying his actions. has he ever said i'm sorry for

what he did? >> i've looked at this case closely. i have not find any evidence he's shown remorse. he smirks about liking younger women. what did he do after he fled? he went to europe and had a romantic relationship with a 15-year-old. what did he do that irritated the judge before sentence iing this case before going to europe? he's photographed in a german beer hall surrounded by young women. that's what annoyed the judge. what was the terrible sentence? a slightly harder slap on the wrist than the 42 days he already got. he might have gotten as much as 90 days, maybe a couple months. give me a break. i agree completely. there's too many justifications for his behavior. the celebrities are lining up to s support him. the rich and powerful. thank goodness the rest of us understand differently.

>> let's get it clear here on the plea bargain. he said he was going to get 50 years. >> that's ridiculous. >> you're saying 90 days top. >> that's ridiculous. >> it's not enough for what he did to a 13-year-old. >> the law back in 1978 for the one crime he pled guilty to. he pled guilty to the lowest felony charge. the judge was going to sentence him to 90 days. he already served 42. he would have gotten an additional 48 days. potentially, maybe a little more time because the judge was indicating he was up happy with the boor hall photo. we can never know. why? he chose to flee. all the allegations of misconduct are potential. they never came to pass because of roman polanski's choice to

flee. >> lisa made a good point. the stars in hollywood. why are they standing behind him? >> because he's one of their >> we've seen this happen a lot but also there's a big story here about judicial misconduct and lisa touched on that. if you watch the documentarily a lot of potential issues there, i mean from the judge holding a press conference to the judge asking a reporter what he should do in sentencing. so if you are friends or if you think they're abused in the judicial process it makes sense that you would argue on their behalf. >> lisa, do you see judicial misconduct here? >> i do not. >> okay. >> i watched that film twice. it's total defense spin made by his hollywood friends. initially they tried to blame this 13-year-old girl for the sexual misconduct, i mean, please. look what happened was they say this that this judge consult the other people about the sentence, a reporter, another district attorney but bottom line legally is the misconduct never happened because he never did sentence

roman polanski because roman fled on the eve of sentencing. if he had impose a sentence of 30 years, then roman polanski could make these arguments that there was misconduct that affected the sentence, but it never happened. it wasome potential and pias. if he had gotten a couple of months or years, would any of us be crying crocodile tears for this man, as you point out correctly, mike, drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl? are we supposed to feel sorry for him? the whole thing is outrageous to me. >> yeah, hopefully justice will be served. russell, 30 seconds. >> i'm not so sure that the misconduct was just potential because if you watch that film holding a press conference, talking to reporters and also asking for lawyers to trust him that there could be deals after the fact, there's a lot more than just potential misconduct here. >> okay, guys, let's take a quick break. a the love calls lined up. call in 1-877-tell-hln. are you infuriated after what he did tie 13-year-old? )$)$)$)$)$)$