Adoption Fight Reveals Gap in State Regulations

An El Cajon woman who arranged the adoption of twin girls caught up in an international custody battle runs an Internet service that is part of an unlicensed and unregulated--but legal--industry that some find troubling.

Like other for-profit adoption brokers, or “facilitators,” Tina Johnson and her Caring Heart Adoption service operate within a gap in the state’s otherwise strict laws regulating adoption agencies, most of which are run by nonprofit groups, officials said.

Johnson is at the center of the controversy over adoption of twin girls born to a St. Louis hotel clerk. Johnson collected $6,000 from a San Bernardino couple and then helped the birth mother turn the babies over to a family from Britain for a reported $12,200.

As the controversy held worldwide attention Thursday, British social workers took custody of the girls, and their mother said she wants them back.

The dispute has exposed a glaring weakness in the state’s adoption laws, said Barbara Menard, who heads adoption services for Catholic Charities in San Diego.

“There’s no licensing or regulating of facilitators, and that’s not good. There are a lot of good facilitators, but this is an example of what can happen,” Menard said. “It gives adoption a bad name. It leaves people with the impression that adoption is about selling babies.”

Adoption agencies say brokered adoptions are becoming more common as facilitators advertise and set up Internet sites to attract clients. Officials said most people do not realize that adoption agencies offer the same services provided by facilitators for less money and with more safeguards.

Blanca Barna, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, said state authorities had never heard of Johnson until they saw news reports about the controversial adoptions.

“In California, we don’t license facilitators. There was no reason for us to know about her,” she said.

Johnson declined to discuss the case. But Jennifer Coburn, a spokeswoman for Johnson, denied that Johnson encourages parents to bid for children. She “does not sell, trade or engage in the trafficking of babies,” Coburn said.

Cindy Simonson, an adoptive parent in San Clemente who also works as an adoption facilitator, said the adoption arranged by Johnson “shouldn’t have happened the way it happened.”

“It sickens me that people label these babies as being sold to the highest bidder. This isn’t what adoption is,” Simonson said.

“Facilitators are getting a bad rep from this fiasco,” Simonson said. “Our role is to fill the gap between the services provided by attorneys and agencies. . . . We can take away the risk of finding a birth mom on your own. When that happens, a good facilitator steps out of the process and allows the lawyer and court to complete the adoption process.”

The San Bernardino couple, Richard and Vickie Allen, say they paid Johnson $6,000 in fees and adopted the 6-month-olds in October.

They named the girls Kiara and Keyara and agreed to give Johnson an additional payment of $2,500 when they could gather the money.

Two months later, they say, Johnson and birth mother Tranda Wecker took the girls and gave them to Alan and Judith Kilshaw of Wales, who said they paid Johnson more than $12,000 for arranging the adoptions. The Kilshaws named the girls Kimberley and Belinda.

Johnson’s spokeswoman on Thursday said it was Wecker’s decision to take the children from the first set of adoptive parents. But “I can’t comment on the reasons why the birth mother changed her mind,” Coburn said. Nor would she say why Johnson charged different fees to the two families or if the Allens’ money has been refunded.

Officials familiar with state adoption laws said facilitators charge pretty much what the market will bear for brokering adoptions, though adoption agencies have nominal fees.

“The sky’s the limit,” said Debra Zanders-Willis, spokeswoman for the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, which is also a state-licensed adoption agency.

“About the only regulation that covers them is that they have to be bonded,” said San Diego attorney Kristine Pogalies, a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.

Pogalies said her firm rarely works with brokers, choosing instead licensed agencies or independent adoptions involving only a birth mother and adoptive parents.

Grace Allen, outreach coordinator for the Pleasanton-based Independent Adoption Center, said licensed agencies such as hers also rarely work with facilitators. Like brokers, adoption agencies match adoptive parents with birth mothers or parents, she said.

In California, a birth mother who gives up her child through a licensed agency must sign custody of the child over to the agency. When the child is placed with adoptive parents by the agency, the mother usually signs a relinquishment agreement within two or three days, giving final custody to the adoptive parents.

“The relinquishment agreement is irrevocable. The only way it can be overturned is if the mother proves she was coerced or signed under duress,” said Allen.

However, when a birth mother gives up her child through a facilitator or attorney, state law gives her up to 90 days to change her mind about the adoption.

According to officials familiar with brokered adoptions, facilitators--unlike licensed adoption agencies--are not required to provide counseling to birth mothers.

Barna and others familiar with the case involving the twins say there is a question about whether Johnson may have misrepresented her business as an adoption agency. She said the state Department of Social Services is assisting the FBI in its investigation of Johnson, but declined to elaborate.

Menard, of Catholic Charities, said Johnson may have violated the law by taking the twins to Arkansas, where they were adopted by the Kilshaws under that state’s relatively loose adoption laws.

“There are very strict laws about taking these babies across state lines. In this case, you’d need the permission of the incoming state, Arkansas, to take the children there,” said Menard.

The controversy over the twins’ adoptions grew even murkier Thursday as local authorities in Wales, said to have been concerned about the media circus and the prospect of the Kilshaws becoming involved in lengthy court action, took custody of the children.

And Wecker, appearing on CBS television’s “The Early Show,” said she now wants her children back.

“I love my girls. . . . I feel like I was betrayed,” she said.

But the Kilshaws, who appeared on the same program, vowed to fight to keep the twins in England.

“We don’t think any court would feel the children should go back to America,” Alan Kilshaw said.

Meanwhile, the Allens said the Arkansas adoptions were illegal because Wecker had not been a state resident for the required 30 days.

Menard and others expressed hope that the state Legislature will step in and regulate facilitators.

“Hopefully, something good will come out of this,” she said.

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Times wire services contributed to this story.