Charles Feldman on the Internet adoption controversy


Feldman

CNN Correspondent Charles Feldman has been following the Internet adoption story from Los Angeles.

Q: Is the complaint against the birth mother, or against an adoption organization?

FELDMAN: The investigation is on the Web site, which was acting as a facilitator to hook up the birth mother with potential parents for these children.

What's happening now is, this investigation is widening and is now moving its focus from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah. In the past few weeks, we've been told, the FBI office in Salt Lake City has gotten a number of complaints -- we don't know how many, but multiple -- from parents who claim that they paid money to an Internet Web site, and in this case we're told (it is) A Caring Heart adoption Web site. ...

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Family law: Adoption

Right now the FBI is trying to connect the dots to see what the relation is. But we're told that the cases in Utah do involve multiple sets of parents who are alleging fraud; that they paid money to an Internet site to help facilitate finding a child or children for adoption, only to not end up with the children. So this is becoming a larger investigation, and one law enforcement source told me that they would not be surprised to find parents from other parts of the world coming forward soon with allegations along the same lines.

Q: According to officials, did both couples legally adopt the twins?

FELDMAN: The keyword here is legal. That's very murky. The couple in California never actually completed a legal adoption. They had an agreement between them and the birth mother, but they never actually progressed to the point of a court recognized adoption. The couple in Wales, however, did get an adoption, we understand, from the state of Arkansas. ... There is some question about whether or not the state of Arkansas had legal jurisdiction to grant an adoption to the couple in Wales, since the child was actually born in St. Louis, Missouri, and the birth mother is a resident of Missouri. So I hesitate to say legal adoption; it's still a matter of dispute.

But it's probably fair to say that the couple that has moved it along the farthest is the couple in Wales, because they did go to the state of Arkansas, it is our understanding, and they did get adoption papers there for the twins.

Q: Is there a true legal quandary here, or did the birth mother act according to a written contract?

FELDMAN: There, again, is a matter of dispute. The agreement, and I saw a copy of it, that was signed allows the birth mother 90 days to, in effect, to renege on her decision. But the lawyer representing the Allens, the couple in California, claims that that needed to be in writing, and that the birth mother never did put it in writing. But ... there was nothing in it that I read that indicated that it had to be in writing; simply that the mother had 90 days, unless she took some sort of action, to change her mind. And I suppose there are some who would now argue that she took that action within the 90 days by deciding not to give the children to the Allens.

The real issue -- from a potential fraud point of view -- is the facilitator, the Web site; whether or not it was proper for the Web site to take a finder's fee from one set of parents, for children, and in the end help the children go to another couple, from whom they also collected a fee.

There's been a lot said in different reports from other news organizations about buying and selling children on the Internet, and that is not what anyone is actually alleging here. The children are not bought or sold on the Internet site. The Internet site acted as a finder to match, in this case, a pair of children with potential parents. For that work, they had a mandated fee. ...

It is not uncommon in adoption proceedings, we're told, even when you don't deal with the Internet, to pay all sorts of fees to people who help facilitate them through ... the adoption. But the children still need to be adopted through legal channels through the state of adoption. It's not like you just click on a Web site, pick out a child, pay your money and presto, you've adopted a kid. You still have to go through all kinds of legal proceedings. So the real issue is whether this Web site defrauded (prospective parents) by charging them a fee for finding children and then, in effect, charging others for the same set of children.

Q: How does the fact that the transactions occurred over the Internet impact the case?

FELDMAN: All the Internet does is make a service convenient to people all over the world. In pre-Web days, if this agency wanted to go into this kind of facilitating business, they would have had to buy advertising in newspapers and magazines all over the world, which would be expensive. Because of the economics and the ease of the Web, that wasn't necessary. It's the speed, accessibility and wide distribution of the Internet that makes this different.

There is nothing that is illegal or even unethical about an adoption broker or facilitator having a Web site. Some very ethical and mainstream adoption agencies have Web sites. The question is if this particular Web site defrauded people. The only thing that makes it unique is the Web's distribution and availability means there are potentially more victims.