Woman who bought baby pleads guilty

Updated: Friday, 22 Jun 2012, 10:31 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 22 Jun 2012, 10:31 AM EDT

KOKOMO, Ind. (WISH) - A judge has accepted a plea deal for a woman who bought a baby with money and drugs. A tip prompted the investigation last fall, which revealed a faulty adoption application and led to the arrest of Melissa Lynch and three others.
According to Howard County Sheriff Department records, she and her husband, Stephen, took custody of the child in October 2009 and gave the child’s parents, Ann and Brandon Riggs, more than $13,000 cash and drugs in exchange for the child, 24-Hour News 8 news partner the Kokomo Tribune reports.
Wednesday, a Howard County judge accepted Melissa Lynch’s plea bargain, in which she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deal drugs and profiting from an adoption. She was sentenced to eight years in prison and four years probation.
Her husband made a similar deal last month and was sentenced to seven years in prison, one year of home detention and four years probation.
In a separate hearing Wednesday, the judge rejected a plea deal for Brandon Riggs. A new plea deal is expected to be made that incorporates an unrelated theft charge, the newspaper reports.
Anna Riggs has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess narcotics, conspiracy to commite child selling and welfare fraud. She was sentenced to a year in jail and two and a half years probation. She was also ordered to complete drug and alcohol treatment and pay more than $2,000 restitution to the state Family and Social Services Administration.

Interstate adoption

The issue of interstate adoption arose last year in Florida in the case of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona. She was adopted in 2009 by her foster parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona of Miami, and they have been charged with killing her in February 2011.
The adoption by the Barahonas was approved despite strenuous objections from Nubia's aunt and uncle in Texas, Isidro and Ana Reyes, who tried for years to adopt Nubia and her brother themselves - saying the children would be better off with blood relatives who loved them.
The case fueled criticism that interstate adoptions are often needlessly hampered by bureaucratic hurdles

Snohomish man pleads guilty to sexual abuse

Snohomish man pleads guilty to sexual abuse of adopted teen

EVERETT -- A Snohomish man on Friday admitted sexually assaulting the daughter he and his wife adopted after she was removed from what prosecutors described as a "polygamous clan" in Utah.

The man, 42, pleaded guilty in Snohomish County Superior Court to rape, incest and child molestation. Sentencing was set for Aug. 28. He remains in custody at the Snohomish County Jail.

A therapist recommended that the man and his wife allow the girl, then 15, to sleep in their bed. A month after the family took the therapist's advice, the man allegedly began sexually assaulting the girl, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell wrote in charging papers.

The Herald is not naming the defendant in order to protect the young woman's identity.

The man faces up to 8 1/2 years in prison. He's seeking a sentencing alternative that would emphasize sex offender treatment over prison.

The criminal investigation also resulted in a complaint to the state Department of Health against a therapist, who reportedly recommended that the family share a bed as means to bond.

The case came to the attention of authorities in July 2011. A few months earlier, the now 21-year-old woman disclosed to a mental health professional that her father started sexually assaulting her in 2006, shortly after she was adopted.

Court papers say she was placed in foster care after spending most of her childhood in a polygamous group, where she suffered physical and mental abuse and was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

When the defendant moved from Utah to Snohomish, he and his wife began visitations with the girl, intending to adopt her.

They were aware that "she was an emotionally fragile and vulnerable child," Cornell wrote in court papers.

Babies adopted in international scam

Babies adopted in international scam involving Irish couples returned to their Mexican parents

Mexican authorities have reunited all but one baby to their biological mothers who were allegedly ensnared in an illegal adoption ring which involved Irish couples, the women's lawyer said.

According to attorney Yuri Marquez Jalisco, state authorities returned 10 of the 11 babies to their families last week. Prosecutors are running DNA tests on the remaining baby to confirm the identity of her mother.

The infants were taken into custody by the state’s protective services in January after an investigation was launched when a 21-year-old woman was accused of ‘renting’ one of her children.

According to WTXL NEWS, the mothers involved were tricked by allowing their babies to be photographed for what they thought was an anti-abortion ad campaign. However, it later emerged that the pictures were shown to Irish couples who were trying to adopt.

Then Irish couples apparently paid lawyers to search for a baby, gain custody, and pay for the biological mother's prenatal care.

The Mexican mothers say that they signed contracts with a law firm allowing their babies to be photographed in different places in Jalisco state for an ad campaign.

They told investigators that the infants were taken for up to 15-days at a time and that they received 500 pesos ($36) a day as payment.

"The judge was able to see that far from being members of organized crime they are victims, they were tricked," Marquez said.

Federal prosecutors have not commented on the status of the charges but Marquez said seven people are still in Federal custody.

According to the mothers who were targeted, two of the women arrested searched a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of Guadalajara city in Western Mexico in search of babies.

Both the 21-year-old woman who was first detained and the grandmother of another baby were accused of knowingly taking part in the scheme, but they were released from prison six weeks ago due to a lack of evidence, Marquez said.

Cruz Guadalupe Gutierrez Moreno, (20), says she agreed to have her daughter photographed to pay for the child’s medical expenses after the baby girl was born with weak lungs.

"I was filled with joy when they told us our nightmare was over," Gutierrez  told WTXL. "She knows me and seems happy. The only problem now is that I don't have money for her medicine."