LAWYER, WIFE INDICTED AFTER BABY-SELLING INVESTIGATION
Bert L. Rohrer
The Dallas Morning News
August 7, 1985
A Dallas County grand jury Tuesday indicted a lawyer on three counts of illegally trafficking in children for adoption. His wife also was charged in two of the cases.
In one case, Robert I. Kingsley is accused of conspiring with a Cedar Hill couple to sell an infant to a New York couple. In two others, he and his wife, Mary Zoe Kingsley, who works in his office, are charged in the alleged buying of infants from teen-age mothers.
Assistant District Attorney Marshall Gandy said the charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each conviction.
Two cases were brought against the Kingsleys by the inspector general's office of the Texas Department of Human Resources after a four-month investigation.
Grand Prairie police later brought the third charge against Kingsley, accusing him on June 21 of paying Larry Thomas Blanton and Donna Lou Blanton of Cedar Hill $1,210.45 for Rachel Marie Hagee, an infant. The Blantons, who also were indicted Tuesday, had been given custody of the child by her mother, Tammy Hagee.
Gandy wouldn't say how much the Kingsleys allegedly paid the two teen-agers for their two unnamed baby boys shortly after their births in April and September 1984.
He said the teen-agers were not charged because they "probably had no idea that what they were doing was a violation of the law.'
The Blantons were arrested July 26 in Anderson, Calif., and have not yet been extradited to Texas.
State District Judge Gerry Meier has set bond for the Kingsleys at $2,500 on each count.
Neither of the Kingsleys could be reached for comment Tuesday. But their lawyer, Tom McCorkle, said they have not committed a crime.
"We're not talking about a lawyer selling a baby. There's no evidence that a crime has been committed,' McCorkle said.
Several area judges, including Dallas Juvenile Court Judge Craig Penfold, said they alerted state Department of Human Resources officials after noticing an unusual pattern in Kingsley's adoption cases: The natural mother would relinquish her rights regardless of whether prospective parents had petitioned for adoption. Authorities said the two steps usually are taken simultaneously.
"We're talking about a vendetta against one lawyer by one judge (Penfold),' McCorkle said.
"The judge doesn't like the prospective parents to pay the mother. They want them to die of starvation or go on welfare, and they don't like lawyers getting rich off these cases,' he said. "Well, I'm sorry.'