Irvine Woman Indicted Again in Alleged Baby-Selling Ring

An Irvine woman whom authorities accuse of masterminding an international baby-selling ring has been indicted on smuggling and tax evasion charges, nearly five years after similar charges were dropped for lack of evidence, authorities said Tuesday.

Marianne Gati, 52, was indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury in Santa Ana, said Gati’s attorney, H. Dean Steward. Her husband, Tom, was indicted on two counts of tax evasion.

Gati only learned of the new indictments on Tuesday, when a letter arrived from the U.S. attorney’s office summoning her for arraignment on May 14, Steward said.

“She’s worried, concerned but confident that the truth will come out,” he said.

The original case against Gati generated international headlines in 1996, when federal authorities accused her of bringing as many as 30 poor, pregnant women into the United States, then selling their babies to wealthy California couples for as much as $80,000 each.

Prosecutors at the time alleged Gati provided airline tickets and other travel documents for the Hungarian women to come to Orange County to deliver their babies. In court papers, authorities accused her of promising to pay each mother “$1,000 for a baby with dark features and $12,000 for a baby with light features.”

Despite the sensational allegations, Gati was indicted only on charges of tax evasion. Prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal complaint after a judge ruled that documents seized from Gati’s home were obtained illegally.

U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek on Tuesday would not say what new evidence, if any, prosecutors have gathered against Gati. He did reveal that investigators have spent years probing Gati’s business practices.

“Cases like this are extremely difficult to make, and they require a lengthy investigation in order for us to serve these charges,” Mrozek said.

Steward said Gati insists she is innocent and did nothing wrong while running her adoption agency, which she has since shut down.

“We maintain that she ran a legitimate international adoption agency and did everything she was supposed to do,” he said.

The new indictments, he said, come only months before the five-year statute of limitations on the charges was due to expire.

Steward said prosecutors must prove that investigators did not use the documents previously thrown out of court in their quest for new evidence against Gati. Any such evidence would be ruled inadmissible in court, he said.

Last year, a Villa Park adoption attorney pleaded guilty to immigration fraud charges that involved work in Gati-arranged deals, authorities said.

As part of a plea agreement, Janice J. Doezie admitted that Hungarian birth mothers and parents were recruited--and that some were smuggled--to the United States to give up their children in exchange for money, federal prosecutors said. She was sentenced in December to 18 months in federal prison.