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Adoption of Slain Girl, 6, May Not Have Occurred

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Adoption of Slain Girl, 6, May Not Have Occurred

By JULIE JOHNSON

LEAD: The Greenwich Village couple accused of beating Elizabeth Steinberg to death and neglecting their 16-month-old boy may not have adopted the two children, child welfare and law-enforcement authorities said yesterday.

The Greenwich Village couple accused of beating Elizabeth Steinberg to death and neglecting their 16-month-old boy may not have adopted the two children, child welfare and law-enforcement authorities said yesterday.

The couple - Joel B. Steinberg, 46, and Hedda Nussbaum, 45, who had presented themselves to coworkers and neighbors as the adoptive parents of the children - have been charged with murder in connection with Elizabeth's death from a brain hemorrhage.

The Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said the authorities had located Elizabeth's biological mother but had not contacted her. The biological mother of the younger child, Mitchell, has also been found and is cooperating with the investigation, prosecutors said. The boy, who has been placed in a foster home, had been found by the police tethered to a chair. His clothes were covered with urine but he was uninjured.

Mr. Morgenthau declined to discuss what evidence the authorities had uncovered in trying to piece together details about how the children came into the custody of the couple. Unanswered Questions

''At this point it looks to us as though there was no adoption and there was no guardianship,'' Mr. Morgenthau said in an interview.

Little is known about the ''adoption'' of Elizabeth, beyond that she is thought to have been born May 14, 1981, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, officials say.

Law-enforcement authorities, and a lawyer who said he was involved in the private placement of Mitchell, said the case raised questions about safeguards in the state's private adoption system.

David Verplank, a Long Island lawyer, said in an interview that he had represented Mitchell's biological mother, who at the time of the boy's birth on June 21, 1986, was a teen-ager who had ''walked off the street in labor'' and into Beth Israel.

Mr. Verplank said the teen-ager, whom he would not name, had sought the assistance of an attending obstetrician in the hospital to arrange an adoption.

A spokesman for Beth Israel, Frank Lopez, declined to comment about whether the boy had been born at the hospital. 'The Most Bizarre Thing'

Mr. Verplank said the teen-ager had signed forms, apparently prepared by Mr. Steinberg, who is a lawyer, consenting to an adoption and to the surrender of the newborn boy.

Under the law, once guardianship is transferred, it is up to the prospective adoptive parents to file petitions, either in Surrogate's or in Family Court, of their intent to adopt, Mr. Verplank said.

Mr. Steinberg apparently never did, Mr. Verplank said.

''You have to understand this is the most bizarre thing you can imagine,'' said Mr. Verplank, who had worked on a private placement adoption with Mr. Steinberg seven years ago. ''The one thing you never have to worry about is the petition for adoption being filed to the court.''

Law-enforcement officials and experts in private placement adoption say Mr. Steinberg may have intentionally decided not to follow through with the court petitions in order to avoid a court-supervised home study. Such a study could have revealed that Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum were not married, and it could have uncovered the couple's history of domestic violence.

New York's domestic relations law does not specifically forbid adoption by unmarried cohabitating adults, and it does not require home studies in intrastate private adoptions.

However, legal experts and court officials say that home studies are routinely done to establish income, family stability and the suitability of the prospective parents. And, in that process, the absence of marriage would likely be questioned, they said.

1987 Nov 7