A Long Day for Yoko and John in Court (1971)

Just a Long Day For Yoko and John in Custody War

By Richard Meserole and Lester Abelman

New Long Island

July 29, 1971

     Beatle John Lennon, and his Japanese wife, Yoko Ono, made a fruitless trip to Mineola, Long Island, yesterday in her battle for custody of her daughter, Kyoko, 7, the offspring of her first marriage to movie producer Anthony Cox.

     She lost another round in the fight. Yoko had obtained a show-cause order in the Nassau Supreme Court in an effort to have the child produced in court. She had believed the girl was living with Cox in Bellport, Long Island. Last Friday, her attorney, Sydney Siben, subpoenaed Cox's father, George of 24 Yaphank Road, Brookhaven, a technical art director for Brookhaven National Laboratories. 

    The elder Cox showed up in court yesterday and testified that he had seen neither Kyoko nor her father since last August, when they left the state. He said that so far as he knew, they had never returned to the state. He told the court that he knew where Kyoko was, but that the location was not in this state. He refused to say where she was.

        Justice Albert Oppido dismissed the suit after ruling that no facts had been shown to show that the court had jurisdiction in the case. Simon told the court that Cox had been using Kyoko as a pawn to extort money from Lennon.

     Lennon and Yoko were both in court, but neither would talk to newsmen or to several dozen Beatles fans who hovered around the shiny gray limousine that brought the Lennons to Mineola.

     Yoko was dressed in a white mini skirt, green sleeveless sweater, and white boots. Lennon was unusually conservative in a thick, black vested suit, a maroon and white check shirt, and a reddish tie. For him, his hair was not particularly long. He was unbearded. 

    The Lennons have traveled to many parts of the world in their fight for Kyoko. Last April, they were charged with kidnapping the girl in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. At the time, Yoko said that her temporary removal of Kyoko from the grounds of a hotel was purely an act of a mother seeking to see her child. She said she had no intention of trying to kidnap the girl, but only "wanted to go shopping." When the Lennons arrived here early this month from London, he told Newsmen that the custody fight had already cost him $120,000