WITNESS: MOM TRYING TO REGAIN CHILD HAD SUGGESTED ADOPTION

Ted Bell

SACRAMENTO BEE

The young Davis mother who claims she and her boyfriend were coerced by counselors into giving up their 20 day old daughter was the one who originally had the idea of adoption, one of the counselors testified Wednesday.

Kathy Huntziker, a volunteer counselor with the Davis Crisis Pregnancy Center, flatly contradicted testimony by 20 year old Lea Tyler Darrah.

Darrah testified earlier that she was scared and confused but harbored no desire of losing Michelle when she called the CPC shortly after having delivered the baby by herself on the floor of her University of California, Davis, dormitory bathroom in April 1991.

Darrah and her now-husband Matthew Darrah have filed suit against the CPC and Children's Home Society of California, seeking to rescind the relinquishment of custody. Yolo County Superior Court Judge William Lebov is hearing the case without a jury,

Huntziker admitted that the CPC, a subsidiary of the Christian Action Council, could not furnish any paperwork or documentation relating to its contacts with the Darrahs or its steering of the couple to the Children's Home Society, an adoption agency.

Raymond Cheroske, director of the society, said under cross-examination that he could provide no documentation to prove that his agency's counselor, Dee Heszler, had conformed with the strict state rules governing counseling of relinquishing parents.

He said Heszler's word and her exemplary 10-year record were the bases for his denial of the Darrahs' request to invalidate their surrender of Michelle.

Cheroske said he was aware Heszler had been under treatment for cancer when he had asked if there was anything that could have impaired Heszler's judgment but said that he had full confidence in her.

He appeared stunned, however, when the Darrahs' attorney, Brenda Russo, asked if he knew that less than a year before she dealt with the couple she had been under treatment for alcoholism and had been arrested with a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 percent.

He said he hadn't.

When Russo asked if treatment for substance abuse could impair a counselor's judgment, Cheroske said it would.

Timothy Murphy, attorney for the society, said outside the courtroom that the revelation would have no bearing on the case.

"Whatever there was obviously occurred a year before (the adoption)," he said, "and there is no evidence that there was any impairment at the time of the incidents in question."

Huntziker also told the judge that Dr. Steven Smith, who testified Friday about the condition of Lea Darrah after giving birth, had lectured at a Crisis Pregnancy Center training session.

Smith testified that he examined Lea Darrah 11 days after Michelle's birth and found the woman to be healthy, disputing her claim that she was sick, bleeding and unable to eat or sleep.

He also testified he had no connection with the CPC and had never lectured there, but he admitted later that he had made financial contributions to the CPC, had seen about five CPC referrals for free, and participated with CPC members in activities opposing abortions.