Another Adoption Fraud Case from Florida
“Jaime Suzanne Ritchhart, 31, was booked Wednesday into the Marion County Jail, charged with adoption fraud and grand theft.
Her arrest by Marion County Sheriff’s Office Detective T.J. Watts was the third recent case in which a woman signed with an adoption agency to give a child up in exchange for money and then either refused to go through with the deal or the pregnancy was a hoax.
In Ritchhart’s case, Watts received a report from an official with Heart of Adoptions Inc. that Ritchhart had received money from them fraudulently. Ritchhart, the official said, signed papers with them on Jan. 1 and gave them documents from a doctor confirming her pregnancy. The official said their office gave Ritchhart more than $7,110 from Jan. 9 through March 18. In addition, money for her rent was sent to Ritchhart’s landlord.
Watts said the agency official told him that when they followed up on Ritchhart’s medical appointments, they discovered she had not been keeping them. They checked a hospital where a doctor had seen Ritchhart and discovered she had had a miscarriage. Further follow up revealed that Ritchhart had a hysterectomy in January.
The detective interviewed the landlord Wednesday, who told Watts he knew Ritchhart had gone through an adoption agency to pay him for her room. He said she had had a miscarriage, and that he received money for her rent last month.
Watts went to Ritchhart’s residence and she told him she was giving her child up for adoption and that Heart of Adoptions Inc. was paying her rent. She claimed she was seven months pregnant and her baby was due in May.
After being confronted with a medical report stating that she had had a hysterectomy, Ritchhart declined to comment further and was arrested.”
Woman charged with adoption fraud
[Ocala.com 3/21/13 by Austin L. Miller]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Wait a second… I looked up Florida adoption law lately, and it’s illegal for an adoption agency to OFFER money to a pregnant woman as an inducement to surrendering her child for adoption. They can only compensate her for “expenses”, which wouldn’t include rent unless she was unable to work as a result of the pregnancy and/or had to scale back her hours, resulting in less pay.
By rights, the adoption agency’s cash-for-child policy should lead to some arrests within the adoption agency for child trafficking.
According to this explanation http://iaatp.com/docs/Florida-FrequentlyAskedQuestionsOct08.pdf the following can be paid:
“In both agency and independent adoptions, the prospective adoptive parents (and/or agency) may pay “reasonable living expenses” of the birth mother in many
situations. Reasonable living expenses include rent, utilities, basic telephone service, food, toiletries, clothing, transportation, insurance, and expenses found by the court to be necessary for the health and well-being of the birth mother and unborn child. These expenses can be paid during the length of the pregnancy and
up to six weeks post-partum. In addition to reasonable living expenses, reasonable and necessary medical expenses, legal fees/expenses, court costs, and
professional fees, including counselor/therapist fees may be paid for the birthmother.”
Rally,
The source I was referencing made it plain that accepting these “living expenses” does NOT mandate the birthmother surrender the child for adoption, nor can she be required to pay them back if she decides not to go through with the adoption. It was considered “baby selling” otherwise.
I looked it up because a PAP was complaining that the Floridian birthmother had decided not to surrender after birth, and hadn’t offered to set up a repayment schedule.
That being the case, adoption agency’s claim that having “…signed with an adoption agency to give a child up in exchange for money and then either refused to go through with the deal or the pregnancy was a hoax…” constitutes fraud and theft is questionable. Changing her mind surrendering a child for adoption after birth is a legally protected right.
Even in the case of still receiving payments after a miscarriage, this wouldn’t have been possible without lax supervision by the adoption agency. They should have contacted the mother after the first missed doctor’s appointment and asked her what gives. Poor prenatal care adversely impacts the health of the child– whose interests they’re supposed to be representing.
And such unreliability might indicate that the mother is a drug or alcohol abuser– something that PAPs would expect the agency to check and monitor for. No, the agency definitely dropped the ball here, and should write the loss off to experience– and upgrade their internal procedures to prevent it from happening again.
It strikes me that the REAL purpose of the legal charges is to create the impression in the public mind that once a birthmother has signed with an agency– and certainly once she’s accepted money– she is contractually obligated to surrender her baby at birth to the adoption agency, and might be arrested if she doesn’t “pay up”.
I personally do not like any part of the process of the payments. It all sounds like coercion to me. The prosecutors always are very swift and harsh on potential birthmothers in this situation. Agencies never get prosecuted for anything. It is another double standard in the adoption world. Bad birthmother, good AP, agency.
Rally,
I agree. I threw up a little in my mouth reading how Florida law treats birthmothers.
If you sign a a contract for new siding on your house, you have three business days under federal law to go “God, what have I done?” and cancel the contract. But if you’re a birthmother signing away your parental rights to your newborn… sorry, done is done. It’s not fair to the APs for them to be disappointed by losing a child they thought was “theirs” now, you see. Being fair to the mother who carried the child in her body and gave birth to her isn’t on the agenda
Oh, and the agency/lawyer can push for this signature either 48 hours after birth OR on the day the birthmother is given medical clearance to leave the hospital WHICHEVER COMES FIRST. They don’t want the new mother going home with her baby and spending any one-on-one time before being presented with the release form, do they?
Ironically, if the baby is already six months old when the birthmother decides to place him, she DOES get three business days to change her mind. I can’t think why Florida law is so uncharacteristically concerned about birthmothers being certain of their decision at this point. Perhaps it’s because this scenario rarely happens in any adoption which benefits adoption agencies?