Adoption scam

Adoption scam leaves couples financially, emotionally scarred

By Sarah Wallace

(New York - WABC, September 10, 2007) - Adoptive couples are opening up about their heartbreak, saying they are the victims of a baby bait-and-switch scheme.

The Eyewitness News Investigators took an exclusive into an international adoption agency with clients all over the United States.

That agency, which posts photo listings of children on Web sites, is now under criminal investigation.

The Investigators' Sarah Wallace joins us.

The couples you're about to meet have already endured unimaginable heartbreak, infertility or loss of a baby. And then, they claim they were lured into a pipeline of phony promises by an adoption agency that's now in total turmoil.

The couples have courageously decided to make their personal pain public so others don't go through it.

Sarah: "He guaranteed that you would get this baby."
Angela Klein: "Absolutely."

Claudia Wessel: "He blatantly promised this child to us."

Sarah: "There was no doubt that this baby was reserved for you?"
Dawn Delorenzo: "No doubt at all."
Sarah: "Was it love at first sight?"
Dawn: "Yeah, absolutely."

For Dawn and Joe Delorenzo, of Woodbridge, New Jersey, it was Alexander. He was the first baby who stole the couple's heart. But there would be others in this heartbreaking adoption saga, which has taken families halfway around the world to the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Alexander's photo was posted on various international adoption Web sites by an agency called Adoption International Program. It is run by a man named Orson Mozes.

Dawn: "And the first thing we had to do was open up a federal express account, and we had to send him $8,000."
Sarah: "To reserve the baby?"
Joe: "Yes."
Sarah: "This baby?"
Dawn: "Yes."
Sarah: "No doubt about it?"
Joe: "Absolutely."

Angela Klein and her husband fell in love too with another baby, who, like Alexander, lived in a Kazakhstan orphanage.

Angela: "He said, 'If you want this baby, I need money now.'"
Sarah: "And then you get this baby?"
Angela: "Yes."

Clients told us that everything was done by E-mail or by phone and they never met Orson Mozes in person or went to an office. There is no office, per se. Adoption International Program is run out of a multi-million dollar estate in Santa Barbara, California, owned by Orson Mozes and his wife.

Mozes claimed to be separated when he recently posted personal photos on Match.com. At the same time, he was still allegedly matching prospective adoptive parents with children, taking thousands of dollars up front for so-called referrals.

"When I questioned him, he said your boy is still there, your boy is still there," Dawn said. "He's fine."

The Delorenzo's say Mozes reassured them with updated baby photos, even though the agency contract says there are no guarantees that a child will be placed with the adoptive family. The Klein's even got a videotape of their baby boy.

"It's amazing how you start to bond with this little picture of a person you've never met," Angela said. "You start to create scenarios of being together, and just being a family."

The babies became so real, and then...

"We get a phone call, 8:30 the night before we were getting on the plane, that this child is no longer available," Angela said. "And of course, our hearts sank, and I was hysterical because he couldn't give us an answer."

Dawn: "Never gave us an answer. Nine months later, we got an e-mail that said, 'I'm sorry, but your baby's not available.'"
Sarah: "Just like that?"
Dawn: "Just like that."

For the Delorenzo's, it was about to get much worse.

"He found another baby," Dawn said. "We went over in February. We were pretty excited and we started bonding with this baby."

In Kazakhstan, they say they were then told the baby's birth mother changed her mind.

Sarah: "So you lost that baby."
Dawn: "We lost that baby."
Sarah: "And there was a third?"
Dawn: "There was a third."

His name was Stephen. By this time, Dawn had begun writing a blog about their journey.

And one of the E-mails Dawn received was from a family in Newport, Rhode Island. They were complete strangers who say they had something very much in common. They'd been promised the same baby.

"We got an e-mail on the day their adoption was final that he's no longer available ever," Claudia Wessel said. "And didn't give a reason. Didn't say that it went to another client of his. Just that he's no longer available."

Claudia and her husband, Stefan, say they were promised another baby boy and flew to Kazizkstan.

"And they told us that, as we're walking in the orphanage doors, that he's no longer available," Claudia said.

The Wessels did come home from Kazakistan with a 7-year-old girl, Anastasia, not the baby boy they'd planned on. And they're grateful, but there's been a heavy emotional and financial toll.

They say it cost close to $50,000.

Angela Klein and her husband also adopted an older child.

"If you did not make a decision then, that was it," she said. "You were going home with no child."

But the Delorenzo's still have an empty nest.

"That's the hardest part, you come home to an empty crib everyday," Dawn said.

It's now three different boys they've loved and lost. Stephen, the child also promised to the Wessel's, is still in Kazakhstan, caught in red tape.

And Orson Mozes' response?

"We haven't been able to talk to Orson Mozes," Dawn said.

Neither have we. We've been told he bolted from his home and the agency, leaving it in disarray.

Sarah: "How do you look at what he's done?"
Dawn: "This is a harsh statement, but I look at the man as an emotional rapist. It is the most evil and manipulative scam that anyone could possibly drag a couple through."

The DeLorenzo's say they've been told by Kazakhstan authorities if they want to pursue adoption there, they'd have to start all over.

The Santa Barbara District Attorney is investigating. A source tell us they are most interested in trying to determine if there's a pattern of the same child being promised to different couples.

We've found several who say exactly that, including a couple on Long Island. Tuesday at 5 p.m., we'll share their story, as well as how an Internet E-mail allowed clients to find each other.

(Copyright 2007 WABC-TV)