After almost two years, Vero mom found her mentally disabled daughter – 3,000 miles away

Editor's note: Laurence Reisman has followed this case since March 2022, facing numerous roadblocks for public records and interviews in the process. This is the second in a series. Read Part 1 here.

Supee Spindler had seemingly run out of options to find her 49-year-old mentally disabled daughter she’d been taking care of.

She'd hired lawyers and private investigators and sent letters to her state and federal representatives in an effort to find Nisarat “Nungning” Jittasonthi, who law enforcement agents took from Spindler’s Vero Beach therapeutic massage and facial business in February 2021.

On April 21, 2022, I wrote about how a year earlier the Thai immigrant, a U.S. citizen, had been cleared of abuse or neglect by the state Department of Children and Families, but Homeland Security officials refused to provide me with any information, claiming there was an ongoing investigation.

A week later, Spindler, who opened her Vero Beach business in 2009, heeded a friend’s advice to call local attorney Gary Rooney.

“Supee did nothing wrong,” the Vero Beach lawyer told me recently in an email, echoing comments of three other local attorneys who had looked into the matter earlier. “The first goal was to locate Nungning, but of course to get her home and reunited with mom.”

Spindler, now 71, met Rooney May 11, 2022, and provided him with records. He subsequently asked one of his newer attorneys, Joni Mazzola, to meet with Spindler.

Vero Beach is 'not Miami'

Mazzola said Rooney described the case as so "outrageous" and "unbelievable," she should review the documents before meeting personally with Spindler.

“I read through this and was just flabbergasted,” Mazzola said. “There has to be something that I'm missing, because how does a United States citizen lose their child here? I mean, this isn't Miami. This is a small town.”

From April 2022: No charges, feds mum: Court stymies Vero Beach woman's efforts to see daughter

In the coming months, Mazzola would only start finding answers as she tried to locate Jittasonthi.

She learned police took Jittasonthi from her mother’s spa to Catholic Charities in West Palm Beach in February 2021. A woman Spindler called a disgruntled former employee told police she worried Jittasonthi, "a coworker", was a victim of human trafficking.

Why? Claims made in handwritten notes the complainant said the mentally disabled woman had written and the fact Spindler held Jittasonthi’s ID and passport. There was no mention in the police report Spindler was Jittasonthi’s mother.

The claims sparked investigations by the Florida Department of Children and Families and Homeland Security Investigation. Charges were never filed.

Does disabled adult need guardian, or not?

One of the keys to Rooney’s strategy was foreshadowed in a Catholic Charities court pleading Sept. 13, 2021. The agency responded to a lawsuit Julia Graves, Spindler’s attorney, filed, asking them to return Jittasonthi to her mother.

Catholic Charities said Jittasonthi “voluntarily” remained in its “residential setting,” with case management, medical and social services, and financial assistance provided to her for free.

The next two sentences puzzled Rooney and Mazzola.

In them, Catholic Charities cited Jittasonthi’s “acknowledged and diagnosed disabilities” and asked Circuit Judge Janet Croom to consider appointing counsel or a guardian ad litem. The agency said Jittasonthi decided she did not want to return to her mother.

Before Croom could rule, the case was dismissed because she said she did not have jurisdiction over a woman believed to be living in Palm Beach County, not Indian River. Still, Catholic Charities’ pleading raised a red flag to Mazzola.

“How do you have it both ways?” Mazzola said. “If she can consent, you don't need a guardianship. But if she can’t (consent), you do need one and you all do not have one.”

By Sept. 9, 2022, Rooney got Sebastian attorney Raul Perez to seek an emergency Florida guardianship of Jittasonthi by her mother. Circuit Judge Robert Meadows reviewed documents from Thai officials and local physicians, showing Jittasonthi’s third-grade aptitude, epilepsy and mental and intellectual disabilities and proof Spindler is her mother.

Meantime,, Mazzola acted like a private investigator. Spindler had shown her pictures of Jittasonthi a caseworker had sent via cellphone.

Using GPS, metadata to find West Palm Beach location

On Sept. 12, 2022, using geocoded metadata stored on the images, Mazzola and Spindler used GPS coordinates to find where the caseworker took Jittasonthi to a Thai restaurant, where she got her hair done and what looked like a Catholic Charities Salvation Army apartment complex.

Once there, Mazzola said she pulled out a picture of Jittasonthi and asked a woman who might have lived in the apartment complex if she looked familiar. Yes, the woman said, but she had not been there — the shelter — for months.

Later that day, even with emergency guardianship papers in hand, they were turned away from the apartment complex, but given a number for a Catholic Charities office in Riviera Beach.

The next day, Riviera Beach police accompanied them as they went looking for Jittasonthi at a Catholic Charities facility there.

The encounter is memorialized on police bodycam video.

It shows a police officer going with Spindler into a gated compound. Rooney and Mazzola were in a conference room.

In the hallway, Catholic Charities CEO Ellen Wayne told police the group would be “asked to leave the property” as Jittasonthi was an adult and made her own decision not to return to her mother.

Bodycam video: CEO alleges human trafficking

Later, Wayne, who later declined comment to TCPalm, was more direct with officers out of the earshot of Spindler and her lawyers:

“Quite honestly, she’s (Jittasonthi) out of state. She’s a victim of human trafficking, declared as such,” the CEO said. She then pointed at Spindler. “That’s the trafficker.”

That day, Catholic Charities officials told the attorneys Jittasonthi had not been at the campus for maybe a year and, because she made her own decision on where to go, her location would not be revealed.

Rooney and Mazzola were told the agency, to honor the court order, would provide case records as soon as possible. Two days later, Spindler’s lawyers learned Jittasonthi had been transported to a Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking shelter in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2021. Catholic Charities case notes indicate she made scarves there to earn some money.

Setting up a Zoom reunion

It wasn't until Sept. 27, 2022, that there was a major breakthrough in the case. Nicole Avila, an attorney for Florida Legal Services, which said it represented Jittasonthi in Florida, contacted Spindler’s lawyers and said she wanted to speak to her mother. Eventually, a Zoom call was set up for Oct. 21.

It would be the first time mother and daughter spoke in 16 months.

NEXT: Tears of joy, fear, shed in a dramatic coast-to-coast Zoom call.

This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman.

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This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Vero woman ends up at LA trafficking shelter. Why didn’t her mom know?