Adoption Agency Is Sued In Baby-Selling

By The Associated Press

An illegal adoption agency sold babies to the highest bidder for up to $36,000, the New York State Attorney General charged in a suit filed yesterday.

The couple who ran the agency, Childhaven of Northeastern Pennsylvania, paid the biological mothers $2,000 and offered them housing and medical care during their pregnancies, the Attorney General, Robert Abrams, said.

The operators of the agency, which was based in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn and Scranton, Pa., were identified as Harriet and Lawrence Lauer of Brooklyn and their attorney, Seymour Fenichel of Manhattan. The Attorney General filed a civil lawsuit against the operators of the agency and executed a search warrant at the Lauer home in Brooklyn. Efforts to reach the three for comments were not successful.

The Attorney General said the Lauers have never been licensed by New York State to place children for adoption and are no longer licensed by the State of Pennsylvania.

''We're looking for restitution for people who we feel were charged unconscionable sums of money,'' said Lanie Accles, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General.