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MOTHER IN BABY-SALE CASE TESTIFIES THAT SIGNATURE WAS FORGED

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Tom Howlett

The Dallas Morning News

October 2, 1986

A 24-year-old Dallas woman testified Wednesday in the trial of a Dallas lawyer charged with child-selling that her signature was forged on some adoption papers giving up the rights to her baby boy.

Lynne Marie Breland said during questioning by prosecutors that she agreed to sign papers prepared by Dallas lawyer Robert I. Kingsley to give up her son on April 9, 1984 -- the day after he was born. But she said the signature on similar papers filed in a Rockwall County court when the boy was actually adopted eight months later was not hers.

Defense attorneys will cross-examine Ms. Breland Thursday during the second day of the jury trial in State District Judge Gerry Meier's court. But defense attorney Mike Gibson objected to the use of the papers from Rockwall, arguing that they were not admissible in the Dallas County baby-selling case in which Kingsley is charged.

During the trial -- which is expected to last more than a week -- prosecutors said they will attempt to prove that Kingsley circumvented legal routes to sell the child. The defense will maintain that the lawyer arranged a legal private adoption.

The only case being tried currently is the sale of the boy given up by Ms. Breland.

Ms. Breland testified that she met the Kingsleys during her pregnancy while staying at the Edna Gladney Home in Fort Worth, which houses unwed mothers who generally give their children up for adoption.

After leaving the home for personal reasons, Ms. Breland accepted checks and cash from the Kingsleys for more than $2,000 to pay for living expenses during her pregnancy, she testified.

The day after she gave birth at Medical City Dallas Hospital, Ms. Breland said, the Kingsleys and several associates visited the hospital and gave her adoption papers to sign.

She said the papers were similar to the ones that she contends were forged, which were filed in Rockwall eight months later when the baby was formally adopted by a New York couple.

1986 Oct 2