Prosecutors Seek More Time in Tax-Evasion Case

Federal prosecutors on Friday asked a judge for more time to decide how to proceed in a case against an Irvine woman who allegedly brought as many as 30 pregnant women here from Hungary to help sell their babies to California couples.

In court papers, Assistant U.S. Atty. J. Daniel McCurrie said the government needed a one-week extension to determine its strategy in a tax-evasion case against 48-year-old Marianne Gati and her husband, Thomas.

The government’s case was derailed last week after U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler ruled that federal agents did not have reasonable grounds to suspect the Gatis of wrongdoing when they executed a search warrant at her home in June and confiscated six boxes of documents.

A federal grand jury indictment later accused the Gatis of filing false tax returns for the last four years, alleging that they had failed to report income earned from the wife’s adoption-related business.

The woman’s international adoption ring has sparked investigations on two continents. Hungarian police say they are investigating whether Hungarian nationals, including one of the country’s top doctors, put Gati in contact with poor pregnant women who eventually came to Orange County to sell their babies for cash.

Stotler’s ruling prevents prosecutors from using 15,000 pages of documents seized from the couple’s home and any information garnered as a result of that search.

Federal Public Defender H. Dean Steward has insisted that his client ran a legal adoption business.

Both Gati and her husband have denied wrongdoing.