Hey guys,
Had to post a test to see if I remembered my password. I did. Anyway, here in Cleveland they had a story that hits close to home to all those who are in the FSU pursuit.
From the front page of the METRO section of 4-23-02
WANTED: RUNAWAY BRIDE
Zina Vishnevsky
Plain Dealer Reporter
Russian woman Scammed system big-time, detectives say. Runaway russian bride Natalia "Natasha"Baleevskaia apparently has outsmarted two husbands and officials in two countries, leaving alot of folks looking for her.
Her former husband in Russia, Andrey Baleevsky, wants his children back. Cleveland husband Michael Koval wants a divorce. Russian authorities want her for allegedly forging divorce and custody papers.
And they all want the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to pay some attention to finding her.
Just six months after arriving in the Cleveland area, Natasha and her two children vanished last year, leaving behind a trail of allegedly false accusations designed to make it hard to deport her."
It's a scam," Detective Joe Hedinger said. "She worked the system big time."
THrough courtroom documents, affidavits and interviews, The Plain Dealer has pieced together her story.
It begins in July 1989 in Arkhangelsk, Russia, a city along the North Sea. It was there that 21 year old Natasha married ANdrey, a businessman. THey had two children, a girl, Alexandra "Sasha", born in 1990, and a boy DImitry "Dimä", born seven years later.
In May 2000, Natasha began to create a series of apparently forged papers. She secretly divorced her husband but continued to live with him. Natasha also forged papers giving her custody of the children, according to affidavits and a Russian handwriting analyst.
That June, Natasha, then 32, went on vacation with her children and her mother to a resort in southern Russia, and began to plan her getaway. She already had signed up with an Internet matchmaking service. There she met Koval, a Cleveland factory worker.
Koval had never been married. He had bypass surgery in 1998 and is now on disability. Koval wanted a wife to keep house and maybe work some. "I just thought you can't trust American women. It sounds stupid now,"he said. "I had heard Russian wives like to stay home and take care of the house."
Koval, 45, saw her picture and thought she was the one. "I figured it was my last chance to get a younger wife and have a kid,"he said. THey wrote letters to each other through the agency.
On July 1, 2000, Koval traveled to SPain to meet Natasha. In AUgust, he went to Arkhangelsk for the wedding. Andrey thought she was staying with her mother after she told him: "we need to live apart for a time".
Koval stayed with her, his mother-in-law and the children in the Hotel Peking in MOscow while getting travel documents. "We had our own room for a few days. I guess you could call it a honeymoon,"he said. THey settled in Cleveland and enrolled Sasha in school.
Natasha started taking driving lessons. She took seven lessons from Lazaar Balshen, a Russian immigrant living in cleveland, but never paid him. He said that Feb 23 2001, Natasha failed to show up for her eighth lesson.
By that time, Andrey, her RUssian ex-husband, had discovered that Natasha was living in America.
In February, 2001, three days after the Russian Embassy called Natasha in Cleveland, she had disappeared. But first, she filed an abuse report against Koval, and then she took furnishings and money from the house.
"She came in to the police more than a month after the alleged incident, saying she was abused," Hedinger said. "Then she came back alleging her 3 year old son was sexually abused by her AMerican husband. SHe later tried to say her daughter was abused. That just about guaranteed her protection from the county and immigration."
Cleveland police never pursued her allegations. "We never believed hër," Hedinger said.
Balshen, the driving instructor, said Natasha had never mentioned any alleged spousal abuse.
With little help from authorities, Koval began to search for his wife, tracing her to an East-lake high-rise where she had lived for a short time with a young russian immigrant.
Koval gave the information to the immigration service, but he said that after the INS learned about the abuse allegations, officials seemed to have little interest in the case. Mark Hansen, Cleveland district director of the INS, said, "It is not our policy to comment on INS cases, especially if abuse is alleged."
Besides furnishings and money, Koval's wife had taken something else from him. Natasha was pregnant, he said. Early last year, she moved into a private shelter, and officials there notified Cuyahoga County Children's and Family Services. Koval said a social worker told him that Natasha had had an abortion.
"Once I found out that she lost the kid, I didn't want to live any more. I quit taking my heart medicine and was in a depression for a long time," he said.
Meanwhile the Russian Embassy in Washington got involved at the urging of prosecutors working with Andrey Baleevsky, contacting Children's and Family Services on April 11, 2001.
"It is our duty to inform CFS that Mrs. Baleevskaia is a suspect in a criminal investigation in Russia. She allegedly committed perjury and used counterfeit documents to divorce her husband and bring the children to America after marrying an American husband,"the letter from consul Nikolay Pukalov said.
James McCafferty, now head of the CFS, said "The abuse case was only open for a short time last April."
Recently ex-husband Andrey said two members of the RUssian Parliament agreed to try to get the prosecutor in MOscow to pursue his custody case. In pleading emails to The Plain Dealer, Andrey Baleevsky wrote about how much he misses his children. ANdrey said he has accepted the divorce. The issue now is the lack of a custody hearing, he said. ANd forged documents.
As for Koval, he estimates he spent $35,000 on the wife who disappeared on him. Now, he is rooting for her former husband to get the children. "She doesn't deserve to have kids," Koval said. "It's just a trail of hurt."
Wow, what a story. I'm interested in anyone's opinions. By the way, there was a photo of the lovely couple and SHE IS NO PRIZE. She was quite unattractive, mid 30's and over weight. There goes the idea that a not so hot, mother is a safe bet!!! 
Mark H.
