California IN BRIEF : SANTA ANA : Stepmother Loses in Surrogate Case

A Superior Court judge in Orange County denied custody of a 10-month-old child to a Santa Ana woman whose estranged husband fathered the baby with a surrogate mother. But Judge Nancy Wieben Stock said the woman, Cynthia Moschetta, can seek visitation rights as a stepparent. In California, a person must be biologically related to a child or have adopted the child to be declared its legal parent. The decision came in the first day of what could be a precedent-setting trial in Orange County Superior Court that will determine whether the father, Robert Moschetta, or surrogate mother, Elvira Jordan, should have permanent custody.