MIAMI -- The judge who will decide whether a Cuban father can gain custody of his 5-year old daughter challenged the man's testimony on his fourth day on the stand.

"Sir, I have to tell you that I found a lot of your testimony evasive and dishonest," said Judge Jeri Beth Cohen. "It doesn't mean you're a bad guy; it doesn't mean I don't believe you love your daughter, but I have to tell you I watched you testify and I find parts of what you said dishonest and evasive."

Local 10's Glenna Milberg has been covering the trial and said that the judge interrupted questioning from attorneys for the Florida Department of Children and Families and asked Rafael Izquierdo questions directly. She took issue with the farmer and fisherman from Cabaiguan, Cuban, and what she called his marginal effort to keep in touch with his daughter when she moved with her mother to the United States.

"She is a young child, how did you think she'd remember you from a hole in wall?" asked Cohen.

"I could have done more, it's true,” answered Izquierdo through a translator.

Cohen also chastised Izquierdo for his answers about the seven months he waited to make travel arrangements to the United States, after learning that the girl's mother, Elena Perez, had tried to commit suicide and the girl was being transferred to other caretakers.

"You know we lost five to six months. That's a long time in the life of a little child," said Cohen.

Cohen also made it clear that she does not consider Izquierdo's answers a reason to rule him unfit as a father.

DCF argues that Izquierdo neglected and abandoned his daughter by allowing her to move to the United States in 2004 with a mother who was mentally ill, then shirked his duties to immediately help her when he learned of her mother's suicide attempt.

The DCF’s attorneys argue that the girl would be irreparably harmed if she were removed from the foster parents who have been raising her since she was 3 years old, and whom she calls Mami and Papi.

"I love my daughter; I love very much my daughter. I'm telling you," said Izquierdo, sobbing. “It’s because of the two different laws of two different countries and I'm squeezed in between, I swear to you."