AUDIO from Pacific Beat

Click for Audio: Dissapointment over Samoan adoption scandal sentencing

By Kerrie Ritchie

The owners of an American adoption agency who tricked Samoan families into giving up their children have avoided a jail sentence.

The judge banned the couple from having anything to do with adoption for life.

Eighty Samoan children were adopted out by the Focus on Children Agency between 2002 and 2005.

The Samoan parents were told they were just going to America to be educated and could return home.

American couples thought they were adopting orphans.

Editor of the Samoan Observer, Keni Lefa, says locals believe the agency's owners should go to jail.

"If they find out that none of these people are going to jail, they're going to be very disappointed," he said.

"These guys were misled, they feel betrayed."

The couple which ran the company and two others have been banned for life from having anything to do with adoption.

Many of the Samoan children remain in America, but some have been given back to their birth families.

Following this case, the Samoan government tightened the rules regarding foreign adoption.

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/story.htm?id=15685

Samoans shocked by lenient adoption scam penalties

Last Updated: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:14:00 -0500

Samoans have expressed shock at the sentence given to four Americans, over an adoption agency that tricked Samoan families into giving up their children.

The three women and one man have escaped jail sentences, as New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie reports.

Eighty Samoan children were adopted out by the Focus on Children Agency between 2002 and 2005.

The Samoan parents were told the children would be educated in the US and could return home when they were 18.

But the agency told American families they were orphans and accepted thousands of dollars for them.

The couple which ran the company and two others have been banned for life from having anything to do with adoption.

Editor of the Samoan Observer newspaper Keni Lefa says the judge's leniency will come as a great shock to locals.

"If they find out that they're not going to jail, they're going to be very disappointed," he said.

Many of the Samoan children remain in America. Some have been given back to their birth families.