License of Coral Springs, Fla., Adoption Agency Is Suspended
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
Author: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Dec. 6 State officials suspended the operating license of a Coral Springs adoption agency Friday, saying in a letter that company representatives lied about their ties to a jailed Costa Rican attorney as well as the aliases used by a key employee.
International Adoption Resource, Inc. is no longer permitted to arrange foreign adoptions, according to the three-page document the agency received from the Department of Children & Families. IAR has 30 days to request a hearing to reinstate its license.
DCF officials said an investigation into the business practices of IAR, which began in September, is ongoing.
The department's suspension of the agency's license came on the day the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that an employee of IAR is wanted in Costa Rica on an international arrest warrant for trafficking in minors. In addition, he is under investigation in Colombia on allegations of kidnapping and arranging illegal adoptions, the Attorney General's office in Bogota said this week.
The letter from DCF cites state law that requires the agency to notify the department of any "civil or criminal action... in any jurisdiction against any director, officer or employee...where the ...action relates to ...the licensed child-placing activity of the agency..."
The agency failed to notify the local DCF licensing office "of an action involving an employee of International Adoption Resources."
Additionally there are allegations that the employee, Rolf Levy, and IAR's executive director, Rebecca Thurmond, lied when they told DCF they had no association with Carlos Hernan Robles, a Costa Rican attorney. Robles name surfaced in September during a raid on a house in San Jose Costa Rica where police found nine Guatemalan babies in what authorities feared was an illegal adoption ring.
Papers bearing Robles name were found in the house. He was later jailed in Costa Rica on unrelated embezzlement charges, published reports stated.
According to DCF: "A letter sent by IAR to the Costa Rican consulate...clearly names Carlos Robles as acting on behalf of Rebecca Thurmond."
Thurmond did not return calls for comment Friday.
In addition, DCF contends Levy also goes by the name of Rafael Leyva, but that Levy told state investigators that he did not know anyone by that name.
It is unlawful for officials of child placement agencies to lie to state authorities, DCF said. The agency did not explain how it knows that Levy may also go by Leyva. But a Costa Rican judge told the Sun-Sentinel this week that he issued an arrest warrant in November on a child trafficking charge for Rolf Sal"mon Levy Berger, who also went by Rafael Leyva and Rafael Levy.
Levy, 63, told the paper Friday: "I am innocent." He said Robles was simply a notary that IAR used to apply for a license in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican operating license was later denied.
Levy said he provided documents to DCF to clear his name and noted that DCF did not revoke the agency's license but simply suspended it.
"If there was wrongdoing they would have canceled it," he said.
It's unclear what effect the suspension will have on IAR's pending adoptions, or whether any of the adoptions that have been finalized will be re-opened. DCF spokeswoman Leslie Mann said she could not answer such questions. "This is an ongoing review."
IAR's client list for 2001, in DCF files, shows 50 entries. DCF deleted the adoptive parents' names to protect their confidentiality.
According to state records, IAR first became licensed in Florida in November 2000, operating out of Boca Raton. It moved to 9900 W. Sample Rd. in Coral Springs in 2002.
State corporation records list Thurmond, 47, as the sole officer and director. The most recent organization charts show she has four employees: an office manager, a social worker and two "adoption coordinators," one of which is Levy.
IAR's operating budget for fiscal 02-03 shows a total income of $1.27 million and expenses of $1.19 million, including $57,500 in pay for Thurmond, the records state.
Information packets provided by IAR to parents say the agency arranges adoptions of children from India, Romania, Colombia, Russia, and Cambodia. State records indicate that its emphasis is on Guatemalan adoptions.
Parents adopting children from Guatemala, records show, pay IAR up to $8,225 in fees and an additional $19,175 in "country fees" that IAR forwards to Guatemalan officials. Parents independently pay another $2,000 or more in airfare, hotel and immigration fees, bringing the total cost of adopting to roughly $30,000.
The children available from Guatemala "are mostly infants...newborn to six months of age," IAR documents state.
"Most children will be Mayan Indian or mestizo, a mix of Spanish and Mayan," IAR packets for parents say. "They have dark hair and eyes and their skin tone varies from light to dark brown. Children are generally in excellent health. The children are usually available due to poverty of the birthmother. The children are relinquished usually shortly after birth and are in excellent foster homes while the adoption is processed through the Guatemalan legal system."
The agency's DCF licensing file shows only one complaint from a family that adopted a Guatemalan child through IAR in 2001.
The couple, whose name was removed from the file by DCF to protect their privacy, wrote a long angry letter to IAR's director saying the agency "withheld" information from them and failed to keep them informed on why a DNA test was stalled for more than a month.
"Our daughter is home. Not because of anything IAR did but because we were able to communicate with the facilitator in Guatemala," the letter states. "Thank God we finally realized it was time to take charge of the process because we weren't getting any help from IAR. Yes, we took matters into our hand and yes we finalized the adoption on our own because your agency was incompetent, rude, inconsiderate and dishonest."
Other letters in the file, mostly references for Thurmond and others, praise their professionalism and integrity.
"They (Rebecca and her husband, Kenneth) were my neighbors and good friends," said Woody Burton, an Indiana state representative, during a phone interview. In 2000 he wrote a letter of recommendation on Thurmond's behalf. "They were people who were above board. They were both business people."
In the letter to DCF, Burton said the Thurmonds are parents of three biological and four adopted children.
Rebecca Thurmond's resume indicates that she is a registered nurse, who was IAR's director in Indiana, and had a long history of providing "consultation services to licensed adoption agencies located throughout the United States."
In April, the licensing file states, IAR hired Levy, an Israeli citizen born in Colombia. From 1997 to 2003, according to his resume, he helped Israeli families adopt children in South America, especially in Colombia where he managed an "orphan house for 217 children."
Prior to that he was a sales manager, "introducing multilingual software for car rental companies worldwide."
By Megan O'Matz and Sandra Hernandez