Trafficked US Children Look for Answers UPDATED

A social media group has formed on Facebook called “Seymour Fenichel Adoptees” to help in tracing their original families.

“In 1988, the state Attorney General’s Office accused Fenichel, his daughter Deborah and a Brooklyn couple, Harriet and Lawrence Lauer, of running a “large-scale baby-selling business.”

The ring placed ads in supermarket tabloids to lure knocked-up women in the South and Midwest.”

Pregnant girls were housed in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania. Children were purchased for $8,000 to $12,000 starting in the early 1970s.

Pathetically, Seymour Fenichel only received a sentence of 5 years probation and 2,000 hours of community service before he died in 1994.

Kids stolen from their mothers and sold to new families looking for answers
[The New York Post 2/6/11 by Susan Edelman]

Update: This article describes the unlicensed agency that prospective parents would contact.

“Childhaven of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The couple, Harriet and Lawrence Lauer, never registered to operate their agency in New York. By the time they were caught by New York authorities in 1988, their license in Pennsylvania had expired too.”

Other stolen children/adoptee search stories are also told.

Black Market Babies Seeking Answers Through Facebook
[ABC News 2/15/11 by Jessica Hopper]

Update 2: Facebook Campaign results in reunion. (Others had connected with their original families before this campaign began.)

“Sarah Hudson, who was “sold” as a newborn in a New York baby ring that scammed adoptive mothers in the 1970s and 1980s, was reunited with her biological mother for the first time since her birth.

The Richmond, Va., woman was one of the first “Seymour Fenichel adoptees” to learn that she had been taken from her mother’s arms in 1977 and handed over to an eager couple awaiting a baby.

“I am a black market baby,” Hudson told the ABC affiliate WRIC 8 News team that accompanied her to Long Island to meet 53-year-old Kathleen Rhodes. “I was sold for all intents and purposes in a parking lot.”

Hudson, along with her adoptive mother and husband, reunited amidst tears and lots of tissues on Aug. 7 in Miller Place, N.Y. Both said they had always loved each other — even if from afar.”

“Rhodes ended up marrying the boyfriend who got her pregnant at age 18, so Ashley, Brittany, 24, Caitlyn, 23, and Taylor, 21, are all full siblings.

“I’ve never seen anyone who looks like me in my entire life, and I’ve always wondered where my eyes come from, why is my skin so tan,” said Hudson. “These people look like my twins. There’s no DNA test needed.”
“After suffering a blood clot that almost killed her, Hudson struggled for more than a year to get details on her mother, whose name she knew — Kathy Akeson.

Adoption records are closed in New York and 40 other states, and adoption advocates have been pushing to open records for just this reason.”

Crude Tactics

“In 1988, Brooklyn lawyer Seymour Fenichel, along with his daughter Deborah Greenspan and Harriet and Lawrence Lauer, were indicted on 144 counts of child trafficking and falsifying birth records, often coercing women to give up their babies.

His crude tactics included briskly handing off babies in parking lots or in quick exchanges in the doorway of a hospital elevator.

Birth mothers weren’t allowed to look at or hold their babies after birthing them. Some families seeking to adopt spent thousands on what they thought were agency fees and never received a child.

The quartet found housing for pregnant women in group homes and often registered them in hospitals under fake names. Couples paid up to $35,000 in cash to secure a baby. They were often asked to pony up more to cover “maintenance” for the girls, who never got a penny.”

Parking Lot Passoff

“Her doctor, the father of a friend, made sure she had prenatal care. No one but her boyfriend Larry — who would be her future husband and father of four more girls — and two friends knew about the pregnancy.

Fenichel’s accomplice — a woman posing as a nun, “Sister Marie” — hounded the girl to move into the city before delivery. But Rhodes’ mother insisted the teen live in a basement apartment near the hospital, which is now St. Catherine of Siena, in Smithtown, N.Y.

Fenichel said that when Hudson turned 18 he would provide Rhodes with information to find her. He never did and Rhodes didn’t want to impose on her daughter’s life.

Fenichel gave Rhodes $100 a month and paid for her medical expenses and rent. The teen was told the adoptive couple had waited nine years to have a child.

She promised him she would never see the infant after birth. But the teen couple held and fed the baby for two days, and so when she was discharged, the nun was waiting in the lot to grab the baby and jumped in a car with Fenichel.”

Remarkable Search

“So her 29-year-old husband Thomas, a Virginia policeman, launched an 18-month search to identify Rhodes. Hudson said her adoptive parents, who were supportive, remembered the name Akeson.

Hudson then found the Facebook group, Seymour Fenichel Adoptees, which has 389 members, many of whom had reconnected with biological family members. With New York’s records closed, they suggested several ways to conduct a search, including the public library.

The Hudsons pored over phone book records on microfilm and found Hudson’s biological 81-year-old grandfather who was living in Florida.

After sending a message to Rhodes via Facebook, Hudson made a fateful call to the woman she was convinced was her mother and struck gold.

“My name is Sara and I know you don’t know me,” said Hudson, reassuring Rhodes it was not a sales call. “I was born in Smithtown in June of 1977.”

“You were born June 18th. I know exactly who you are,” said Rhodes, nearly cutting her off. “You need to know that I married your biological father and you have four full-blooded sisters.”

“That’s when I started crying,” said Hudson.”

Mom and Daughter Reunite 34 Years After Adoption Scam
[ABC News 8/16/11 by Susan Donaldson James]

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