The children of actress Kelly Rutherford, who played Lily van der Woodsen on “Gossip Girl,” were sent back to Europe on Tuesday on the orders of a New York judge, People magazine reported.
Rutherford failed on Friday to allow Hermes, 8, and Helena, 6, to return to their father, Daniel Giersch, in Monaco. Giersch accused her of kidnapping them.
New York Supreme Court Judge Ellen Frances Gesmer had ordered Rutherford to appear Tuesday with both children, which she initially failed to do. Gesmer, enforcing a Monaco court order, demanded that she bring them to the court, where Rutherford said goodbye to them and handed them to their paternal grandmother.
Rutherford was granted temporary sole custody of her two children in May, in a protracted dispute that sparked an online petition. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas had ordered that the children be brought back to the United States from Monaco, where they had been living with Giersch.
The couple married in August 2006, separated in December 2008 and was divorced in July 2010.
Rutherford’s attorneys said about the time of the May decision that she had recently traveled to see her children in France but was denied access by Giersch at the last minute.
He claimed she was refusing to turn over the children’s passports. Rutherford argued that she was willing to have a mutually agreed party hold them but did not want to turn the documents over to a designee of Giersch’s choice.