She Adopted Greed : Woman in Prison for Duping Childless Couples Now Wants Daughter Back

Angela Andrews’ story was so persuasive that couples from across the United States sent her money to pay her doctor bills and living expenses, each believing that they would eventually adopt the child Andrews was carrying.

After months of buying baby clothes and decorating nurseries, the expectant couples learned the truth: Andrews never intended to give up the baby. She and her boyfriend had used the money to pay for a 52-inch TV, an Ethan Allen living room set, and dinners out at several restaurants.

In all, Andrews, 22, of Antioch, Ill., received $65,000 in cash, trips and gifts from five couples and an adoption agency in four states--all for expenses related to the coming birth of her child.

Andrews is now serving a nine-year prison term in Illinois after confessing this year to multiple counts of theft, illegal placement of a child and state benefits fraud. Her boyfriend, the child’s father, got a four-year prison term. Her baby girl, born in a Burbank hospital, is living with a La Crescenta couple who want to adopt her.

But the story is far from over. Andrews wants to get her baby back.

She claims that while she was in Los Angeles last year, an attorney coerced her into signing adoption papers by threatening to turn her in to authorities if she did not give up her baby to his clients, Jeffrey Rice and Sheila Pope-Rice of La Crescenta.

“I didn’t want to give her up in the first place and I want her back,” Andrews said in a telephone interview from prison.

Adoption attorneys say they fear that the high-profile case will scare away potential adoptive parents and breed distrust of a system that in most cases works well.

“It’s rare that you have someone of Angela’s ability to defraud, come into the adoption community and wreak the havoc that she has across the United States,” said Durand Cook, a founder of the California Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and the lawyer for one couple that tried to adopt Andrews’ baby.

Recent well-publicized adoption cases, such as that of Baby Jessica, involved birth parents who had an apparent change of heart about an adoption, but the story of Angela Andrews is one of intentional deception and avarice.

“Greed,” Andrews said, when asked why she duped would-be parents. “I don’t know how else to say it. I was sick. My thinking was very distorted to think that was an easy way to get money because a lot of people got hurt.”

On talk shows and in magazine articles, Andrews’ scam and her recent attempts to regain custody have caused ripples of anger in the world of private adoptions. Victims, adoption attorneys, prosecutors and her own mother are appalled at the idea of her getting the child back.

“We’re talking about people who have been convicted for selling a child, who are serving time in jail,” said Sheila Pope-Rice. “They have lied and done horrible things to all these families and now they’re doing it to us.”

Technically, the adoption has not been completed. The Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services is reviewing the case, including the documents Andrews initially signed consenting to the adoption.

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Andrews told each couple the same story: that a co-worker had raped her in the parking lot of a restaurant where she worked. A struggling single mother, there was no way she could take care of a baby, and abortion was out of the question. Instead, she had been looking for a couple who wanted to adopt, and after thinking it over, she was convinced she wanted them to become the parents of her child.

“We were elated,” said one victim, Terri Szostek of Las Vegas. “I’d been trying to have kids for 18 years and it was finally coming true.” For three months last year, the couple acted as a surrogate family for Andrews, Szostek said. “She seemed like she had a victim personality,” Szostek said. “So much had happened to her and she was overwhelmed.”

“We paid for her medical expenses, maternity clothes, and on a monthly basis, rent, utilities and food,” Szostek said.

On Mother’s Day, the couple flew to Illinois to visit her. Andrews gave Terri Szostek a Mother’s Day card, a poem she had written, and a sonogram of the baby.

“Oh gosh, it confirmed everything,” Szostek said, remembering her excitement. “It was really happening.”

The Mother’s Day card and the sonogram, Andrews admits now, were simply to “keep the money coming in.” And come it did.

The rape story was just “a story that was believable about why a birth mother would give up her baby,” she said.

Andrews, who was on welfare, said she made copies of all hospital bills, rental, lease and other expenses and sent a set to each of the couples and the agency. She kept records on her personal computer in a file marked “Invoices.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said prosecutor Richard Schwind. “This was a full-time job for her and she did it well.”

In each case, Andrews established a relationship, received payments, then broke off contact. Police estimate that she contacted about 100 couples and agencies nationwide. It is not known how many couples may have given her money.

Andrews targeted couples in California, Schwind said, because the state has liberal adoption laws allowing would-be parents to pay for more expenses than other states do.

Last September, in the final stages of pregnancy, Andrews flew to California with her boyfriend, Terry Pounds, at the expense of a Northern California couple interested in adopting the child, said the Northern California couple’s attorney, Lynne Francis Mann. When they refused to pay the $18,600 Andrews and Pound wanted, the two contacted other adoption attorneys, including Allen Hultquist, who represented Pope-Rice and Rice.

In her signed confession, Andrews said Hultquist threatened to turn her in if she did not sign adoption papers and accept $11,000. Somehow, Andrews said, Hultquist had learned of her scheme.

“I was scared,” Andrews said in an interview. “I was crying. I didn’t want to sign, but I didn’t want to go to jail.”

Hultquist refused to comment on the allegations except to say call Andrews’ claims “outright lies,” and to accuse her of seeking publicity and money.

On Sept. 11, 1992, at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Andrews gave birth to a baby girl she called Amber. The Rice family took the baby home immediately.

In the months before, Glencoe, Ill., detectives, acting on a tip, had gathered evidence showing Andrews was telling many couples that she was willing to turn over her child if they would cover her expenses. Detectives arrested Andrews after she gave birth. She pleaded guilty in February.

Andrews now expresses remorse and said her motive was money. Questions about the money are apparently among the reasons the formal adoption of the baby is not final.

According to Andrews, the question centers on the $11,000 she claims Hultquist gave her. The check was postmarked three days after Amber’s birth; the date would indicate impropriety, she said.

Although it is legal to pay for legitimate expenses during a pregnancy, it is illegal to buy a child. The Department of Children’s Services has declined to comment, citing confidentiality laws.

Schuyler Sprowles, spokesman for Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, said the department’s role in independent adoptions is to examine the “adoption package, itemize the costs, verify the consent, and if there are irregularities, we have to present that to the court.”

Andrews said she has written to officials about her allegations and wants the baby back. “People can change,” she said. “I have changed.”

But Andrews’ mother, who is helping to care for Andrews’ other daughter, said the child should stay with the La Crescenta couple.

“I have told her to drop the issue, leave the baby where she is,” said Andrews’ mother, Nancy Scott, of Cahokia, Ill. “To me it is going to be another Baby Jessica case. I do not want to see that.

“What she has done to these people is beyond words . . . I cannot describe what I feel for them.”

For the Rice family, the sleepless nights have not ended.

“We started this thinking we are adopting from someone who wanted to give up her child,” said Jeffrey Rice. “She gave us every indication that it was her intention to go through with the adoption.”

In fact, the couple said, they knew nothing about Andrews wanting the child back until a news article said she did. “This is our little girl,” Sheila Pope-Rice said. “We are talking about a family. From minute one she was our daughter.”