Guatemalan judge orders US couple to return adopted young girl to her birth mother UPDATED

Karen Abigail  is  Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, a girl that was kidnapped in the yard of her middle-class Guatemalan home. Anyeli’s parents reported the kidnapping on the day that it happened. Guatemalan courts are ordering Karen Abigail back to Guatemala. This suggests that documents were falsified, DNA results were falsified and she was illegally adopted to the US. Ordering a child back to Guatemala is unprecedented news that will surely have a lot of national coverage and followup.

Guatemalan lawyer Susana Luarca was involved in this case. Important background on Susana can be found here.

Celebrate Children International adoption agency was also involved. You can read about how their facilitator in Guatemala was arrested a few months ago here.

Guatemala’s investigative report on irregular adoption practices, issued a few months ago , can be found here . The ridiculous response to it by the CCAI can be found here. CCAI actually advocates/throws a hissy fit for previously matched Guatemalan children to REMAIN IN CARE and WAIT for US parents INSTEAD OF being placed with domestic Guatemalan families like Guatemala already has done in a few cases. So much for being in it “for the children.”

“A Guatemalan judge has ordered a U.S. couple to return their adopted daughter to her birth mother, siding with a human rights group that says the girl was stolen by a child trafficking ring and put up for adoption.

Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez confirmed Wednesday that she ruled in favor of the mother, who is represented by the Survivors’ Foundation.

The rights group, which released a copy of the ruling Tuesday night, claims the girl was kidnapped in 2006 and taken out of the country under a new name two years later and was last known to be living in Missouri.

Tellez’s ruling also says Guatemala’s government must cancel the passport used to take the girl out of the country. It further orders that if the girl is not returned within two months, Guatemalan authorities should solicit help locating the girl from Interpol, the international police organization.

Nine Guatemalans, including a judge, have been charged in the case. The foundation doesn’t allege the U.S. couple knew the girl had been kidnapped.

The court identified the couple as Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City.

Attempts to reach the couple for comment were unsuccessful. An unidentified woman answering the door at the address listed by the court said she couldn’t talk with an Associated Press reporter because she was on the phone. No one answered the door on a second attempt to reach the couple.

The ruling says the U.S. parents can appeal the ruling in Guatemalan courts and asks the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala to help locate the girl.

The embassy referred questions to the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, which had not responded to a request for comment by Wednesday evening.

Guatemala’s adoption system once sent more than 4,000 children to the United States each year. But adoptions were suspended in 2007 amid widespread claims of kidnapping and fraud by suspect adoption brokers. Guatemala started a small, reformed program of international adoptions later but the United States has declined to participate.

Norma Cruz, of the Survivors’ Foundation, said she believes this is the first time a Guatemalan court has ordered a child to be returned on the grounds that an adoption was fraudulent.

“We’re working on two other cases and we hope for the same result,” she said.

Cruz said the girl was born Oct. 1, 2004, and was stolen from outside the family’s house in the town of San Miguel Petapa near the Guatemalan capital on Nov. 3, 2006. According to the foundation, the girl was then adopted in Guatemala and taken to the United States using a passport under a new name on Dec. 9, 2008

Guatemalan judge orders US couple to return adopted young girl to her birth mother
[The Republic 8/3/11 by Sonia Perez, Associated Press]

For full coverage and background of this specific case, please read author Erin Siegal’s Finding Fernanda website information in its entirety here. She additionally has official documents to view here.

Erin states “Basically, she’s given the Monahans a deadline of two months to respond, counting down from the date of the ruling, July 29, 2011. If they don’t cooperate, a fine of 3,000 Quetzales (about $389) will be imposed, and the Guatemalan authorities will “order the location of the girl through the International Police, INTERPOL.”

Update: The local article thinks they are protecting the APs by not naming names after the Associated Press already outed them .Parents ordered to return adoptive daughter
[KCTV 5 8/5/11 by Betsy Webster]

This article title frames the story correctly by emphasizing the mother’s search
Guatemala mother searched 5 years for adopted girl
[Associated Press 8/6/11 by Larry Kaplow]

“Loyda Rodriguez Morales felt someone tug at her daughter as she tried to enter her simple home with three young children in tow. She turned to see a woman whisk the 2-year-old away in a waiting taxi.
After nearly five years of searching, posting fliers, being turned away at orphanages and even staging a hunger strike, Rodriguez now holds what’s believed to be an unprecedented Guatemalan court order declaring the child stolen and ordering the U.S. couple who eventually adopted her to give her back.”

“The U.S. State Department referred all questions about the court ruling to the Justice Department, which would not comment on the case.

Rodriguez, 26, cried when she saw the July 29 court order made public this past week. She’s already planning how to fix up her daughter’s bedroom.

“I want it with a lot of decorations. I’m going to buy dolls and clothes so she’s not lacking anything,” she told The Associated Press. “If she wants to sleep alone, she’ll have her room. If not, she can be with her brothers.”

U.S. officials might simply try to ignore the order, said David Smolin, a law professor at the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama, and an expert in international adoption.”

“But the leading advocate in the Guatemala case said the U.S. government is obligated under international treaties to return victims of human trafficking or irregular adoptions that have occurred within five years.

The girl left the country on Dec. 9, 2008, according to court records.

“We’re within the margin of time,” said Norma Cruz, director of the Survivors Foundation, a human rights group that filed the court case for Rodriguez. “We don’t have to contact the (adoption) family. The judge’s order says authorities have to find the child, wherever she is.”

The foundation doesn’t allege the U.S. couple knew the girl they adopted had been kidnapped, only that the girl was snatched by a child trafficking ring and put up for adoption with a new name. The couple was identified in the court ruling as Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Missouri.”

“Anyeli Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez was born Oct. 1, 2004, the second child of Rodriguez, a housewife, and her bricklayer husband, Dayner Orlando Hernandez, who came as teenagers to Guatemala City looking for work. The girl disappeared Nov. 3, 2006, as Rodriguez was distracted while opening the door to their house in a working class suburb, San Miguel Petapa.

They reported their daughter missing to various local and federal law enforcement, including authorities in charge of human rights violations and missing children, according to documents of the U.N.-backed corruption commission.

Rodriguez said she searched for more than a year on her own and was repeatedly refused court permission to search foster homes where kids awaited adoption.

She found Cruz and the Survivors Foundation through a court employee in January 2008, and the two women staged a short hunger strike when they were still denied access of government adoption records, Rodriguez said. Once they were given access, it still took nearly a year to find the child’s photo at the National Adoptions Council, where Rodriguez sifted through records with her brother for four straight days in March 2009.

“I felt like my heart was going to leap out. I knew it was her,” she said.

Rodriguez submitted to a DNA test that established her as the mother, the corruption commission says.

But the girl was already in the United States, according to court records.

Anyeli’s identity had been changed in early 2007 by Felicita Antonia Lopez Garcia, a woman claiming to be her mother, who changed the child’s name to Karen Abigail and offered her for adoption, according to the court order. Lopez left the girl with an adoption agency, the Spring Association, several months later after she failed a DNA test, according to the corruption commission. The adoption agency had the girl declared abandoned and put her up for adoption in 2008.

The office of Guatemala’s solicitor general approved the adoption in July of that year, despite the fact that it had already received a missing person’s report on the girl with photographs as early as February 2008, according to the corruption commission.

In December of that year, the girl left the country with the Monahans, named in her Guatemalan passport as Karen Abigail Monahan Vanhorn and listed as being born Jan. 14, 2005.

Prosecutors for the corruption commission used Rodriguez’s case to bring charges against lawyers and brokers with the Spring Association for alleged human trafficking for illegal adoptions and for using false documents. They include the lawyer who notarized the Monahans’ adoption, according to the court order.

Cruz said she has two other cases involving illegal international adoptions in the works.

The address given for the Monahans in the court order is a spacious house on a large, wooded lot with a carriage driveway and an orange soccer ball on the porch.”

Now the couple has hired a PR firm!

Adoption case hits home
[Liberty Tribune 8/10/11 by Angie Anaya Borgedalen]

“A Guatemalan judge has ordered Dr. Timothy J. Monahan, an orthopedic surgeon, and his wife Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty to return the 6-year-old Guatemalan girl they adopted to her birth parents, according to an Associated Press story. The Monahans, who have three children, have not been implicated of any wrongdoing in the girl’s adoption.

The family has hired the Peter Mirijanian Public Affairs agency, based in Washington D.C., to help navigate through the complex situation that could have far-reaching ramifications for the American and Guatemalan families.

A spokesman for the public relations agency issued the following statement Tuesday, Aug. 9, on behalf of the Liberty family:

“The Monahan family will continue to advocate for the safety and best interests of their legally adopted child. They remain committed to protecting their daughter from additional trauma as they pursue the truth of her past through appropriate legal channels.”

The girl, who was born Oct. 1, 2004, was identified as Anyeli Lisebth Hernandez Rodriguez and left Guatemala in 2008 as Karen Abigail Monahan Vanhorn when she was adopted, according to AP.

The Monahans had earlier declined to comment on the unfolding story. A sign taped to the front door of their home read: “Please respect our privacy and do not trespass on our private property. Thank you.”

A woman who answered the telephone at Monahan’s office in Liberty said the doctor had “no comment” to make on the issue.

According to the AP story and other online accounts, the girl was stolen from her birth mother’s side in 2006 in the town of San Miguel Petapa and whisked away by child traffickers.

The girl’s biological parents have been looking for their daughter for five years with the help of Survivors’ Foundation, a human rights group.

A judge and others involved in the alleged Guatemalan kidnapping ring have been charged in the case, according to AP.

Sgt. Matt Kellogg of the Liberty Police Department said the department had not been contacted to intervene.

“At this time, we do not have any open investigation into this matter,” Kellogg said. “Also, we have not been contracted by any federal authorities requesting assistance.”

Kellogg said it would be more likely that the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the U.S. State Department would handle such a case.

“Our role may only be to assist, when and if asked,” Kellogg said.

Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez ruled last week that the Monahans had 60 days to return the girl and ordered Guatemalan authorities to seek help from Interpol, an international law enforcement agency, according to AP.

Staff in Congressman Sam Graves’ office, which represents the 6th District in northwest Missouri, said they were aware of the case.

“Our office has now been contacted by the family and we are making sure that the State Department has all the information they need,” said Jason Klindt, a spokesman for Graves’ office, by email. “Because it is an international legal dispute, the State Department is the lead agency and is actively working on this case. They have the contacts and expertise necessary to help the family.”

Update 2: The new PR firm is getting into high gear and released a statement on Friday August 12, 2011.
From Mo. couple seeks to protect adopted daughter [Associated Press 8/12/11 by Maria Sudekum Fisher]

“A Missouri couple involved in an international adoption dispute said they are seeking information about their adopted child’s past and want to protect her from “additional trauma,” a statement released from them Friday said.

A Guatemala judge ordered Timothy J. Monahan and his wife, Jennifer Monahan, of Liberty to return their 6-year-old adopted daughter to her birth mother, amid claims the girl was kidnapped in 2006 and put up for adoption. SURVIVORS Foundation, the human rights group representing the birth mother, does not allege the Monahans knew anything about a kidnapping.

The Monahans have refused to discuss the case and have not commented publicly how they came to adopt the child or whether they were represented in the proceedings in Guatemala. But a statement released by a public relations firm they hired said they “will continue to advocate for the safety and best interests of their legally adopted child.”

“They remain committed to protecting their daughter from additional trauma as they pursue the truth of her past through appropriate legal channels,” the statement from Peter Mirijanian Public Affairs said.”

Judge Arrest
“Also Friday, Guatemala police briefly detained a judge on charges he fraudulently assisted the adoption of another girl. But he was released for lack of evidence.

Human rights activist Norma Cruz and a U.N.-created agency that investigates adoptions both said the judge, Mario Peralta Castaneda, helped process the Monahan adoption, among others.”

Erin Siegal has the detailed information about this arrest. See her blog here for August 12 and 13th entries. She also has videos of interviews with the biological mother and father on her August 7th and 8th entries.

Interesting Solution

The Associated Press piece ends with an interview of a Guatemalan adoptive parent who says, “I would pay my life away to move the birth mother up here before I would let my child go. She’s my baby.”

So, what if both sets of parents put themselves aside for a moment and tried to come up with a solution that would best transition the child? (Of course it looks like there will be a major push to keep the child in the US and with the adoptive parents. By reading the comments in many of the stories, people cannot see this as a kidnapping case, which it IS)  What if the adoptive parents made a choice to move to Guatemala for awhile and help pay for a bilingual counselor to help transition the child back into her original family? Or what if the adoptive family with the aid of the Department of State, could get visas for the original family to move to the US and with the help of a bilingual counselor transition the child back into her original family AND still live in the US?

Update 3: This article states more clearly that the DNA does match. It also further emphasizes that Loyda looked through 2000 records to find her daughter.

“Loyda Rodriguez, a 26-year-old Guatemalan mother, says she was arriving home in Guatemala City in November of 2006 with her three children when a woman grabbed her then-2-year-old daughter and got into a waiting taxi.

After months of posting flyers, visiting orphanages and talking to strangers, Rodriguez says she found her daughter by staging a hunger strike and pressuring Guatemalan authorities to show her international adoption records.

As she was patiently reviewing about 2,000 files in 2008, the mother’s heart sank. Her little girl had been offered for adoption under a false name and adopted by an American family in Liberty, Missouri.

The mother-daughter relationship was confirmed through DNA — a DNA sample is taken from every Guatemalan child adopted internationally, and the sample from the girl matched Rodriguez.”

“Eight people are behind bars in Guatemala in connection with this case, including the judge who allowed the adoption to take place. He is accused of taking bribes in exchange for expediting cases. All eight individuals have trials pending.”

Guatemalan mother says daughter kidnapped, adopted in U.S.
[CNN 8/17/11 by Rafael Romo]

In a Department of State briefing on Tuesday, August 16, 2011  this subject was brought up. The DOS spokesman promised the questioner that she would tell him a “more full summary action” after the briefing. We have yet to see that publicized. We will post it here if that occurs.

“QUESTION: Can I start with – it’s a little bit off the beaten track, but you might have something on this, this story about – in Guatemala there’s been a ruling of a Guatemalan girl who was kidnapped about four years ago and sold to an adoption agency. And now a judge in Guatemala has ruled that her American parents who adopted her have to return her to Guatemala. The ruling, I think, was this week.

MS. NULAND: I’ve seen the reports on this case. I think I’m going to take the question. It speaks to the complicated nature of some of these foreign adoption cases, but let me give you a more full summary action after the briefing.

QUESTION: Okay. I’m looking to see if the U.S. – if the State Department would enforce the ruling or get involved, similar to how it did with the Elian Gonzalez case in Cuba or something.

MS. NULAND: Good. Thanks.

QUESTION: Thank you.”

Update 4: “All it took was a moment. Loyda Rodriguez recalls carrying her groceries into her Guatemala City apartment before turning around to find her two-year-old daughter Anyeli gone from the patio.

“I said, ‘Where is she?’ I was very confused – why did they take my nena?” said Rodriguez of that afternoon in November 2006. As it turns out, her “nena” (Spanish slang for “baby girl”) was on a long journey to Liberty, Missouri, to be adopted by Jennifer and Timothy J. Monahan.”

“After four years of living together, Anyeli’s adoptive parents are now being ordered to return the six-year-old to her birth mother, whose identity was confirmed through a DNA test. The Monahans have two months to comply with the order, or the International Police will intervene.

While the couple has declined to speak with the press, they issued a statement saying they will “continue to advocate for the safety and best interest of their legally adopted child.”

But for Rodriguez, justice means Anyeli coming home to Guatemala.”

Loyda’s Story of Finding Anyeli

““I feel like I have her! I’ve won!” exalted Rodriguez, from within the protective walls of the human rights organization. Her sense of elation comes on the heels of a grueling five-year search for her daughter, an experience Rodriguez, now 26, can recall with amazing clarity.

Immediately after Anyeli was stolen in 2006, Rodriguez said she called the police and asked neighbors if they’d seen her daughter, and the next morning she went out at dawn to search, to no avail. Her husband contacted the government, which led nowhere, so they decided to keep the search up on their own.

“I kept looking, putting out flyers, but nothing, nothing from the authorities,” she said. At a friend’s suggestion, she went to orphanages, to see if any had taken in her child. “But they said I couldn’t enter without a judge’s order, for the security of the kids there.”

Finally, Rodriguez went to Fundacion Sobrevivientes in 2008, and the organization helped her gain entrance to look at photos of found children in the Public Ministry of Guatemala’s archives. But there were no matches.

Rodriguez, upon learning of two other mothers with missing children, went on a hunger strike in May 2008 with the other women for eight days in front of the government palace, a tall historic building in Guatemala City’s center square.

Thanks to attention from that strike, Rodriguez said, the government began to help, bringing children from the orphanages to the National Attorney General’s office for the women to meet. But child after child entered, and none was Anyeli. Exhausted, she returned home to her two young sons, then being cared for by relatives. Her husband was in Canada, she said, where he works as a migrant farmer four months each year to help make ends meet.

At home she wouldn’t lose hope, but her anguish deepened as time passed and she heard nothing of her child. So she went with her brother to look, again, in November 2008, this time combing through thousands of photos of children in the National Council for Adoptions. Then her brother suddenly held one up.

“He looked at me and said–this is the nena!” Rodriguez recalled, gasping again at the memory. “We took it and looked, made it bigger on the computer to see–and it really was her! I have her, I found her!”

Intimidation of Loyda’s Family After Discovery

“The Public Ministry in 2009 then began an investigation of the case, naming nine culprits including members of the Guatemalan national military (PNG) and a judge who helped change Anyeli’s identity to “Karen Abigail.” But after the discoveries, Rodriguez said she began receiving death threats.

“Many cars came to my house and asked if it was where I lived, and they took my sister but fortunately she escaped,” recalled Rodriguez. They even came to Fundacion Sobrevivientes seeking information on Rodriguez’s whereabouts. Terrified, she took her children out of school and fled Guatemala City, moving to a small town six hours away.

Rodriguez’s brother said the delay in finding Anyeli was due to government negligence.

“They [the government] didn’t listen for so long,” he said. “But yes, now we have justice–we’ll have full justice when all the guilty are in jail, so my sister can be safe… I don’t know how she’s been so brave.” Eight out of nine of the suspects have now been captured, and are in prison awaiting trials.

Though Rodriguez said she still fears people associated with her attackers–she wouldn’t walk three blocks outside to the market in Guatemala City– she still insists that her daughter should return home.”

Amid Allegations of Human Trafficking, Guatemala to Review Adoptions
[New America Media 8/24/11 by Meredith Hoffman]

Also see here and here for Guatemala issues related to this case.

REFORM Puzzle Piece