Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner have reached a tentative agreement to resolve her federal lawsuit demanding the return of the couple’s two young daughters to her native England amid the former pair’s divorce.
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In a court filing on Tuesday (Oct. 10), lawyers for Jonas Brothers singer and the Game of Thrones star said they had made progress in mediation talks and that they “believe that an amicable resolution on all issues between them is forthcoming.”
Filed last month in Manhattan federal court, Turner’s lawsuit claimed that Jonas was in possession of the children’s passports and was refusing to allow them to return to the U.K. as the couple had previously planned would be their “forever home.” The lawsuit, citing international treaties on child abduction, was a dramatic escalation of their divorce case, which Jonas had filed weeks earlier in Miami.
It’s unclear if the pending agreement mentioned in Tuesday’s court filings will resolve the entire divorce case in Florida, or merely the thorny questions of international custody raised by Turner’s lawsuit. No mention of a settlement deal has been filed with the Miami court.
In a joint statement from Turner and Jonas shared with Billboard, the former couple said: “After a productive and successful mediation, we have agreed that the children will spend time equally in loving homes in both the U.S. and the UK. We look forward to being great co-parents.”
After four years of marriage, Jonas filed for divorce in Miami on Sept. 5, stating that that “the marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken.” In her own court filings, Turner has said his “sudden” divorce filing came after an argument on the singer’s birthday on Aug. 15. The day after Jonas filed the case, the couple released a joint statement confirming the split.
On Sept. 15, it was Turner’s turn to file a case. In a petition filed in New York federal court, she claimed that the couple had permanently relocated to England in March and had previously planned for the children to return with her in September, but that Jonas “refuses to return the passports to the Mother and refuses to send the children home to England with the Mother.”
The filing cited the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty signed by both the U.S. and the U.K. Turner claimed that Jonas’ decisions constituted “wrongful retention” of the children under the terms of the treaty.
“The Father’s retention of the children in the United States from England is therefore wrongful under the Hague Convention because the Father has retained the children from their habitual residence of England, in breach of the Mother’s rights of custody to the children under English law, which the Mother was exercising at the time of the retention,” her lawyers wrote at the time.
Jonas’ rep have denied the allegations in Turner’s lawsuit.
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