Embattled Surrogate Mother Admits Welfare Fraud : Court: Officials said Anna Johnson’s case might have been one of ‘oversight,’ so the judge reduced the felony charges to misdemeanors and gave her probation.

Anna L. Johnson, the surrogate mother who has drawn national attention in her legal battle to keep the child she is carrying for another couple, pleaded guilty Tuesday to unrelated welfare fraud charges.

A judge reduced the charges from felonies to misdemeanors after welfare officials said the case could well have been one of “oversight.”

Appearing in court, Johnson, 29, admitted that she collected $4,600 too much in food stamps and aid to families with dependent children while she was working at two nursing jobs last year. She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of welfare fraud, was placed on probation and ordered to perform community service. She has repaid all the money.

The couple who hired Johnson to bear their child for $10,000 said her skirmish with the law shows that she is not trustworthy and that her claim for custody of their son, who is due to be born in mid-October, should be rejected.

“I just don’t think that’s the kind of environment our son should be raised in,” Mark Calvert said. “I think it shows the true nature and personality of Anna Johnson.”

Johnson’s lawyer, Richard C. Gilbert, said the welfare fraud case “has nothing to do with the custody case.”

Johnson, a licensed vocational nurse, contends that she should keep the baby because the Calverts would make unfit parents. She says the Calverts do not love their child and have demonstrated it by making support payments late and failing to adequately care for Johnson. The Calverts have countered that they did everything they could for Johnson, including making their payments early, and that her threats to keep the baby are designed to get publicity and more money.

In a potentially precedent-setting lawsuit filed on Aug. 13, Johnson asks the court to declare her the baby’s biological mother, even though she has no genetic link to the child, and award her custody. Most disputed surrogation cases involve a birth mother whose own egg was used, so she is the baby’s biological mother.

Johnson, a single mother of a 3-year-old daughter, began receiving AFDC and food stamps in 1988 but neglected to report to the Orange County Social Services Agency when she began earning more money. That information would probably have resulted in a reduction of her public assistance.

Johnson will not have to serve any jail time. In exchange for her guilty plea, Superior Court Judge Luis A. Cardenas put Johnson on probation for three years and ordered her to perform 150 hours of community service. As a condition of her plea, he requested--and got--proof that Johnson had repaid the $4,600.

The two fraud counts were originally filed as felonies, carrying a combined maximum prison term of three years and eight months. But Cardenas reduced them to misdemeanors.

Cardenas said it is “highly unusual” to see a case that warrants a reduction from felony to misdemeanor charges even before a defendant completes the probation period. But in Johnson’s case, he said, such a reduction was justified by three factors: Johnson’s lack of a previous criminal record, her promise to repay the money, and indications from welfare officials that they considered the case one of “oversight.”