Adoption theft hearing will resume Friday

Adoption theft hearing will resume Friday

By Pierrette J. Shields
Longmont Times-Call

BOULDER — A Westminster man testified Monday that he and his wife were bilked out of thousands of dollars by a now-defunct Boulder adoption agency run by a former Erie trustee.

However, Lisa Novak’s defense attorney sought to show that his client was never personally responsible for contractual or financial obligations of the Claar Foundation, a nonprofit that arranged international adoptions. He also said there is no evidence to show Novak took the money.

Boulder County Judge Care Hoye Enichen stepped in several times to calm tensions between Novak’s attorney Lance Goff and witness Jaspal Singh as the man testified about his troubles with the Claar Foundation and Novak.

At one point, Goff asked if Singh understood he could not “purchase” a child.

“This is not a purchase, sir,” Singh told the attorney, obviously upset.

Novak, a former Erie trustee, is facing charges of theft and check fraud. She is accused of taking money from hopeful adoptive parents who used the Claar Foundation to try to adopt children from other countries. Singh’s testimony came during a preliminary hearing on one of the theft charges. The hearing is scheduled to continue Friday.

Singh, 32, told a Boulder judge that he and his wife, 61, spent two years and more than $61,000 to adopt a Guatemalan boy through Lisa Novak at the Claar Foundation agency, but that process was riddled with mistakes, mounting unexpected fees and unfulfilled promises.

Novak and her husband Marty Claar often shook their heads or smiled at Singh’s testimony. Enichen warned Goff that Novak’s “incessant” comments to him were distracting her from Singh’s testimony.

Singh testified he and his wife worked with an attorney in Guatemala and the U.S. government to close the adoption for a boy, but that they were never able to adopt a little girl from the orphanage as planned. Ultimately, the Singhs were notified in January that the foundation was closing and found that money they had paid to the organization was not used to pay for items needed for the adoptions.

During his cross-examination, Goff asked Singh if he ever paid money personally to Novak or entered into any contracts directly with Novak. Singh said he never paid money personally to Novak but said Novak signed contracts for the foundation and took his checks to the foundation.

Goff ran out of time on Monday while cross-examining Boulder Police Detective Jeff Kithcart. The detective told Goff that he thinks Novak took money from clients, even though he did not examine Novak’s personal finances or the foundation’s finances.

Pierrette J. Shields can be reached at 303-684-5273 or pshields@times-call.com