Surrogate Faces Felony Welfare Fraud Charges

Anna L. Johnson, the surrogate mother who is fighting to keep the unborn child she agreed to carry for another couple, is facing welfare fraud charges for allegedly collecting thousands of dollars more in public assistance than she was due.

Lawyers for Mark and Crispina Calvert, the couple whose baby Johnson is to deliver in October, said the revelations about her alleged criminal conduct show that Johnson cannot be trusted when she claims that the couple mistreated her. Johnson, 29, is using a “fetal neglect” argument in her lawsuit to keep the baby. The Calverts’ sperm and egg were united in a laboratory and the resulting embryo was implanted in Johnson’s womb in January.

“It makes you wonder about everything she’s said so far,” said Christian R. Van Deusen(, attorney for the Calverts.

Johnson’s custody suit, filed Monday, marks the first time in the country that a judge will be asked to decide whether a woman can claim a child as her own when she has no genetic relationship to it. Johnson claims the Calverts, who agreed to pay her $10,000 to bear the child, breached the contract by making late payments, failing to buy life insurance for her and by not caring adequately for her and the fetus.

Johnson’s attorney, Richard C. Gilbert, called the welfare fraud charges “a complete misunderstanding” that stemmed largely from the Orange County Social Service Agency’s own mistakes.

“The reason this case was filed is that the D.A. likes to make a mountain out of a molehill,” Gilbert said. “They make it look like the crime of the century.”

Johnson, a licensed vocational nurse and a single mother, was charged with two felony counts of welfare fraud last month after officials found she was earning more than she told the Orange County Social Services Agency when she began receiving food stamps and AFDC, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

She allegedly failed to fully report her income from jobs with Nursing Services International, a Santa Ana nursing registry, from January through March of 1989, and with Western Medical Center-Santa Ana from March through November of 1989, officials said.

Court records show that when Johnson applied for the benefits for herself and her own baby girl in December, 1988, she signed a form acknowledging that she was obliged to report any change in income to the Social Services Agency. But the charges against her say she failed to do so, and as a result, she received higher payments than she should have.

The criminal complaint said that Johnson received excess benefits of at least $400 each from food stamps and AFDC each month between January and October of 1989, but Gilbert said the total amount of overpayment was about $5,000.

If convicted of either count, Johnson faces a maximum of three years in jail, but if convicted of both counts, the law permits her to serve no more than three years and eight months. Johnson will be arraigned Sept. 5 in Westminster Municipal Court.

Gilbert said Johnson is willing to plead no contest to the charges and repay the money, but he added that prosecutors had not yet agreed to that arrangement. Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Dave Himelson, supervisor of the family support division, declined to discuss the case.

Gilbert said Johnson informed the Social Services Agency about her employment status and they failed to make the appropriate changes in her benefits. Once the problem was discovered, Johnson acknowledged her earnings and offered to repay any overpayments, but criminal charges were filed instead, Gilbert said.