An American father — who is wanted in Italy for allegedly abducting his infant son — has been ordered by a California judge to turn the boy over to his Italian mother following a bitter international custody battle.
And now, the dad fears he’ll never see the boy again.
“Everything I did was to protect [my son],” Eric Howard Nichols told The Post in an exclusive phone interview Monday. “There was no malice in my actions.”
Nichols, 50, became a notorious figure in Italy after he took his son Ethan to the US without the knowledge or permission of his ex-partner, Claudia Ciampi, 46.
Ciampi did numerous interviews on Italian TV about the case and even appealed to Pope Francis for help.
Nicholas admitted he refused to tell her where he was with the child, who was seven months at the time and still breastfeeding.
Now, Ciampi has returned home with the boy and is seeking full custody and a restraining order from Nichols after California federal Judge David Carter last week ruled in her favor in the international custody case.
The incident ended up involving Italian, American and international law enforcement to track down Nichols and the baby boy to Orange County, California in November. The boy was taken from the father and placed with Ciampi in the US while the case played out.
Nichols, “kept the breastfeeding infant from his mother for about 82 days, refusing to disclose their location in the United States,” all while Ciampi “endured” a “heart wrenching separation from Baby Ethan,” Carter wrote in his Feb. 18 decision.
Nichols defended his actions in a phone interview with The Post saying he is in this terrible position, in part due to bad legal advice from a former lawyer, who told him he could help Nichols if he took the boy back to the US where he was born.
“It has been 3 months since I’ve seen [Ethan],” Nichols told The Post, noting Ciampi has only allegedly allowed him a few minutes with the boy on video calls once every four days.
“This is unbearable. It’s torture,” the embattled dad said. “Ethan is my one and only son. I’ve waited 35 years to have a baby and Claudia knows how much I want to be with my son.”
The ordeal began after Nichols — who prior to the case had been teaching English classes in Italy for 13 years — rekindled an old flame with Ciampi. The pair — who first dated in 2011 — then had Ethan in Ohio in February 2024 before returning to her home in Piano di Sorrento, Italy together with the newborn in March, according to the ruling.
But things fell apart and they split for a second time on Aug. 5, according to the judge’s order.
Nichols claimed, both at trial earlier this month and to The Post, that he became worried for Ethan’s well-being because Ciampi was abusive to Nichols and suicidal.
Nichols claims he exhausted all avenues in Italy — going to the police, child services and consulting with lawyers over his concerns — but no one was taking his claims urgently or seriously enough.
So on one of his visitations with his son — while Ciampi was visiting her siblings in Puglia — Nichols refused to turn over the boy’s American passport, as he normally did, and failed to return the child at the agree-upon time that day on Aug. 30, the ruling says.
Nichols first told a very-concerned Ciampi he was taking the son out for a fun day at the zoo, beaches and water parks before finally admitting at 9 p.m. that he flew to London with the child and was headed to the US, Carter’s ruling says.
Carter was shown a slew of desperate messages from Ciampi begging Nichols return with the child.
“Eric, when are you bringing him back? We need to see each other and hug and kiss. I miss him so much,” one message read.
“Hey Eric, please come back with [Baby Ethan]. I can’t sleep, I have palpitations. I beg you to come back. We can agree so that you can be [satisfied], and [Baby Ethan] can grow up with a loving father and a loving mother too,” another message said, according to the order.
The judge found that Nichols’ arguments that Ciampi was suicidal and a threat to Ethan, and her other children from prior relationships, weren’t credible.
“The overwhelming evidence instead portrays a loving and attentive mother, not a parent who poses an intolerable risk to her child,” the judge wrote.
Nichols said the outcome of the judge’s ruling is “terrible” and claimed there were some legal mistakes and mischaracterizations of the testimony. Still, he said he and his lawyers didn’t plan to appeal.
He also said he doesn’t think he can return to Italy to fight for his son because he’d be arrested to face criminal charges.
Nichols said he “did nothing but treat [Ciampi] well and I’m [painted as] the monster.”
The dad claimed he tried to help Ciampi get mental health treatment but she refused to acknowledge she had a problem.
Meanwhile, Ciampi’s lawyer Stephane Quinn told The Post that his client expressed to Nichols just once that she had a brief moment when she thought maybe she didn’t want to live anymore.
But Nichols took the fleeting emotional confession — not uncommon in women suffering from postpartum depression — and “ran with it.”
“He tried to make it sound like it was a constant refrain that she was repeating. It was not,” Quinn said.
Nichols claims she was suicidal and would harm the child “was nothing more than a last-ditch attempt to keep the child in the US,” Quinn argued.
Carter made his findings — including that the custody fight between the duo must ultimately play out in an Italian court — after a three-day trial earlier this month.
Nichols’ lawyer, Brett Berman, claimed in a statement to The Post that his client only hid Ethan’s whereabouts from Ciampi because of his prior lawyer’s advice and claimed Nichols left Italy with the child in the first place because Ciampi had allegedly been abusing the dad and Ethan.
Berman also said the mom, dad and baby had video and telephone calls “nearly every day during the so-called ‘abduction.’”
The lawyer added that the parents’ “intention” was always to have Ethan grow up in the US where he was born.
