SANTA ANA : Judge Dismisses Baby-Selling Case

A judge on Thursday cleared a former boyfriend and girlfriend in connection with an alleged baby-selling scheme in March.

Saying she “did not, in any manner, way, shape or form, find a conspiracy,” Judge Jacquelyn D. Thomason dismissed the two felony counts and one misdemeanor count each against Youda Huor and Ira M. Aspiz.

The district attorney’s office filed the charges March 20 against Huor, a county social worker, and Aspiz, a Long Beach attorney, after a welfare applicant complained that Huor referred her to Aspiz and said she could get up to $10,000 for her child. Huor screened pregnant women for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and lost her job soon after the charges were filed.

Defense attorneys Thursday outlined the circumstances surrounding welfare applicant Lisa Dury’s conversations with Huor and Aspiz, as well as those of two other women enlisted by the district attorney’s office. Huor’s attorney, James Stotler, said Huor was trying to help Dury, an unemployed, homeless, pregnant woman who was seeking federal aid.

A private adoption would prove more profitable than a county adoption, Stotler said. State statute permits adoptive parents to pay for medical and living expenses surrounding the pregnancy, attorneys said.

According to attorney Paul Meyer, Aspiz was just performing his job as an adoption attorney when he informed the pregnant women that an adoptive couple could pay medical and living expenses if they put their babies up for adoption--perhaps as much as $20,000 if the baby had blond hair and blue eyes because that is what some parents seek, he said.

The charges followed an eight-month investigation by the district attorney’s office. Deputy Dist. Atty. Clyde P. Von Der Ahe said his office will evaluate the case and consider refiling charges, but would not elaborate.

Huor declined to comment after the judge’s decision. Aspiz said his adoption law practice has suffered, but he’s glad the case is over.

“I’ve lost a lot of clients,” he said. “There’s a permanent status about (the charges) and whenever people hear about it, they will remember. . . . It’ll take time to recover.”