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http://www.gopbi.com/topstory/fagan/fagan51698.htm

Kurth and her current attorneys could not be reached Friday.

In an interview with The Palm Beach Post this Week, Kurth said she had been arrested a few times for driving under the influence but said she was never convicted.

"I wasn't convicted of any kind of driving under the influence. They won't have convictions. As usual, they don't have the documents proving anything they are saying," Kurth said Tuesday.

But Kurth added that she might have pushed some things from her memory.

"One of the reasons I can't answer some of these things is I have spent so many years trying to forget all of the bad stuff. I spent so long trying to forget, to be able to think of good things with my daughters and forget the bad things with Stephen," Kurth said. "I consciously made myself forget them."

Fagan, in a brief interview WPTV­Channe1 5 taped at his home Friday, restated his argument that his daughters were being abused and neglected.

"There's a 5- and a 2-year-old crying for food, going out, going to neighbors' houses, as others said, asking to be fed. At one point Rachael said 'My mommy's dead, my mommy's dead, I can't wake her up.' These things just tear you apart," Fagan said.

The DUI convictions don't necessarily prove Kurth was an unfit parent or justify Fagan taking the girls and concealing their identities, said attorneys in Florida and Massachusetts familiar with family law.

In partial agreement was Fagan's West Palm Beach lawyer, David Roth, who represents many clients accused of drinking and driving.

"A couple of DUIS does not necessarily make a person an unfit parent," Roth Said. But he said Kurth's convictions "combined with the apparent abhorrent neglect of the children is an entirely different scenario."

Originally published in The Palm Beach Post on Saturday, May 16, 1998.

6/4/98 7:39 AM