State Reviews Files of Overseas Adoptions at Coral Springs, Fla., Firm
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
Author: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Dec. 9 Florida's child welfare agency, working with federal and international officials, will review the legality of all overseas adoptions arranged by a Coral Springs company.
The Broward County office of the Department of Children & Families released a statement Monday saying it is reviewing all the files of International Adoption Resource Inc.
Jack Moss, the DCF's district administrator, released a one-page statement warning that "this may be an involved and lengthy process and one that will no doubt cause anxiety for those families involved. Our thoughts and sympathies are with these families."
Moss declined an interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and the agency declined to release any more specifics about its investigation, except to say it is working with the federal Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and with Interpol, an international police communication network.
On Friday, the DCF suspended the company's operating license, saying key representatives of the company lied to DCF investigators about their association with a jailed Costa Rican attorney and failed to admit that an adoption agency worker used aliases. The company has 30 days to challenge the suspension in an administrative hearing.
Moss' statement says the DCF will "address the legality of all adoptions handled by IAR, as well as those adoptions currently being processed."
DCF spokeswoman Leslie Mann said parents who have adopted through the company should not fear that their adoptions will be invalidated.
"It's not our intent to go in and sweep up children," she said.
At the same time, she said the DCF will be reviewing files to look for evidence that the parental rights of adopted children were legally severed in their countries of birth. The company arranges adoptions of children from Romania, India, Colombia, Russia, Cambodia and Guatemala, state records show.
Mann declined to say how many cases the company has handled or how many are in the pipeline. "That's one of the things we'll be looking at," she said.
A 2001 client list from the company's licensing file, kept at the DCF's office, showed 50 entries. There was no similar document for 2000, 2002 or 2003.
The DCF received several calls Monday from families in the process of adopting children through the company, Mann said. The families wanted answers as to whether the children they had been promised would materialize or whether they could recoup thousands of dollars given to the company.
The DCF had few answers.
Mann said the investigation is "very technical" and "very complex."
In his written statement, Moss asked "all those involved to give us the time required to gather the facts before passing judgment."
He encouraged families with questions or "information pertinent to this review," to call the DCF's legal office at 954-467-4551.
A judge in Costa Rica told the Sun-Sentinel last week that he issued an arrest warrant in late November for Rolf Salómon Levy Berger, also known as Rafael Levy and Rafael Leyva, on a charge of trafficking in minors. In addition, authorities in Colombia said Berger is under investigation there, accused of kidnapping and arranging illegal adoptions.
In an interview last week, Levy, the company's "adoption coordinator," told the Sun-Sentinel he was aware of the warrant but said it was a mistake and based on erroneous information. He said he was cleared of any wrongdoing in Colombia.
The company's executive director, Rebecca Thurmond, did not respond Monday to a message left at her office, at 9900 W. Sample Road, for comment.
Police in Costa Rica are investigating how nine Guatemalan babies came to be staying in a Costa Rican house, in what authorities feared was an illegal adoption ring. Papers found in the house bore the name of an attorney, Carlos Hernan Robles, whom Levy said he hired to help the agency submit paperwork to become licensed there.
Robles was later jailed on an unrelated embezzlement charge.
On Monday, Guatemala Attorney General Carlos David De Leon said he would be glad to help the DCF or any U.S. agency in the investigation.
"In my opinion, it is a positive action that state officials look and see who is actually working to bring about legitimate adoptions, and perhaps this will also help uncover those who are illegal groups or agencies that are taking advantage and trafficking in minors," he said.
De Leon estimated that about 2,000 children are taken from Guatemala each year for illegal adoptions, prostitution and other illicit acts.
Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said he was not aware of any investigation of the company.
However, he said, such cases usually focus on whether an adoption agency acted illegally by obtaining immigration visas for children by using "false claims and statements."
"Guatemala has been a problem over the years when it comes to trafficking of babies," Strassberger said. "There is a market for babies. And it was such a problem there they started requiring DNA tests for the mother and the child being put up for adoption."
Mikal W. Grass, a Fort Lauderdale-based adoption attorney who has experience in arranging foreign adoptions, said prospective adoptive parents who suddenly find themselves working with an agency whose credentials are questioned often have little recourse in obtaining a refund.
"They are out of luck, as far as I know," he said.
The most common response, he said, is to sue the agency in civil court for damages.
By Megan O'Matz and Sandra Hernandez