Adoption Consultant Faces Wire Fraud Case

Federal agents arrested an Irvine woman Friday and accused her of running an international baby-selling operation that arranged for pregnant Hungarian women to enter the country illegally and sell their babies--sometimes for as much as $80,000--to adoptive parents.

Marianne Gati, 48, was arrested on suspicion of mail and wire fraud by federal agents who have been working with Hungarian National Police to investigate the allegations that Gati arranged to sell as many as 30 babies.

According to federal agents, Gati and an unidentified Hungarian associate provided airline tickets and other travel documents for the women to come to Orange County to deliver their babies.

Gati, also known as Maria Rozsa, a Canadian citizen who is Hungarian-born, housed the women in a pink stucco home across the street from her own home in Irvine’s Westpark neighborhood, court documents state.

She promised to pay each mother “$1,000 for a baby with dark features and $12,000 for a baby with light features,” according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court. One source mentioned in the complaint told federal agents that Gati made $20,000 for each adopted baby.

The federal criminal complaint states that no husbands nor fathers ever accompanied the women to the United States.

“Any documents provided to adoption agencies on behalf of the fathers are signed in Hungary and notarized later in the United States,” the complaint states. “In some instance, the fathers’ signatures are forged” in an apparent attempt to circumvent the birth fathers’ rights.

Authorities arrested Gati after she tried to transfer $51,000 from a bank account with a $427,000 balance. U.S. agents feared Gati was planning to leave the country, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel J. McCurrie.

Gati insisted on her innocence during a brief appearance Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elgin E. Edwards.

“I’m going to prove it’s not true,” she told the magistrate. “I didn’t do anything.”

McCurrie persuaded a federal magistrate to delay Gati’s bail hearing until Wednesday.

H. Dean Steward, the head of the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Santa Ana, who represented Gati because she did not have enough time to hire a private attorney, said she insisted that she operated “a legitimate adoption consulting agency.

“She always has at least one attorney involved in each adoption to make sure it’s not illegal,” Steward added.

The complaint alleges Gati wired money from one account to another, knowing “that the transaction was designed to disguise . . . unlawful activity.”

Court documents indicate that Internal Revenue Service agents have been investigating Gati’s adoption operation for about seven months.

Kenneth J. Hines, an IRS investigator based in Long Beach, said that earlier this month, the Hungarian police relayed a request through the U.S. Embassy in Vienna for American law enforcement officials to assist them in their investigation of Gati’s adoption ring. The Hungarian police provided federal agents with the names of two pregnant women, Eva Bogdan and Rozalia Czaba, who came to Orange County in 1995. They were paid $1,000 each for their babies, Hines said in the court documents.

On Wednesday, Hines served a search warrant at Gati’s new residence on Arbusto in Westpark, carting away boxes of documents. Among them was a bank statement showing a balance of $427,000, under the name Maria Rozsa in a Wells Fargo bank near her home.

In the court documents, Hines said he spoke to Gati’s husband, Thomas Gati, who said the money belonged to his wife “and her only source of income is the adoption business.”

The Gatis’ tax returns showed no more than approximately $60,000 income for each of the last three tax years, Hines said.

The IRS agent said he also spoke to the manager of a Mail Boxes Etc., who said Gati has used his business to send faxes and wire money to Hungary and other countries.

“The manager told me that on one occasion Gati received a fax . . . in which someone demanded the return of $80,000 because they had not received a child in the course of an adoption,” Hines said.

A former neighbor said in an interview that she was shocked to learn of Gati’s arrest. The neighbor, Linda J. Ziemba, said Gati moved into a home on Del Roma in the Westpark neighborhood in 1991. Since then, she has been lodging Hungarian women in another house she owned on Del Perlatto, Ziemba said.

“I didn’t think she was selling babies,” Ziemba said. “She took care of the women by providing their food and medical expenses.”

Ziemba said Gati told her that most of her clients were couples from Newport Beach and Beverly Hills. “My friends who wanted to adopt babies couldn’t afford her,” Ziemba said.

Gati moved out of the neighborhood in April after paying a $118,000 down payment on a larger house in the Irvine’s new Westpark II subdivision.

In court Friday, Gati told the magistrate, “Just tell me why I’m here.” Magistrate Edwards explained her rights to her.

A court official who evaluates bail requests told the judge that Gati previously was arrested in Costa Mesa on trespassing charges, and had been arrested in Santa Ana two months ago on shoplifting charges.

According to the official, Gati told her that she earns a living by charging $5,000 for every couple for whom she secures a baby.