Attorney Sentenced in Adoption Scam

A Villa Park adoption attorney who pleaded guilty to immigration fraud charges stemming from her role in an international baby-bartering scheme was sentenced on Monday to an 18-month federal prison term.

Janice J. Doezie, who had hoped to be sentenced to home confinement, buried her head in her arms and began weeping as U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler issued her ruling. Stotler said Doezie could have acted the “right way” as a lawyer, but instead obstructed justice and abused the public trust.

“She must and she will face punishment,” Stotler said.

Doezie, 50, was accused of playing a key role in a scheme to bring into the United States pregnant Hungarian women whose babies would eventually be sold to well-to-do California couples. The women typically entered the country through Canada. Babies were also smuggled over the border to facilitate the illegal adoptions, authorities said.

Two suspected co-conspirators in the case have never been brought to trial. A Canadian attorney remains a fugitive, and charges were dropped against an Irvine woman accused of masterminding the ring that allegedly smuggled as many as 30 pregnant women into the country.

Prosecutors said Doezie conspired to bring in 13 birth mothers or children during an 18-month period from 1994 to 1996. Doezie helped recruit the women, offering them $1,000 to $12,000 per child, they said.

Doezie said she only wanted to help people mired in difficult situations. The Hungarian mothers, she said, were poor and wanted their babies to live better lives. And the American couples desperately wanted the babies, she said.

“I did it the wrong way, but I did it for the right reasons,” Doezie said after the hearing in Santa Ana.