Socialite who paid $180,000 for her son helps FBI break black-market baby-selling ring

By LEE MORAN

A black-market baby-selling ring that charged at least $100,000 per child was broken up by the FBI - with the help of a socialite who had been tricked into buying her son.

Taylor Stein, daughter of rock music promoter Howard, unwittingly became involved in the sting where cash-strapped surrogates were impregnated with sperm and eggs from the Ukraine.

As she was about to receive her child, for whom she had paid $180,000, she was contacted by FBI investigators who asked her to record her conversations with the three ringleaders.

A trio of baby-sellers have since pleaded guilty to wire-fraud charges and Stein now wants to change the law so adopted children have the right to know the identity of their parents.

She said: 'Looking back, there are signs I should have seen. But I didn't, I just didn't.'

Single-mother Stein, who lives in Los Angeles, decided to adopt a brother for Djuna, her four-year-old daughter with Estée Lauder billionaire William Lauder, in 2009.

But the process became complicated and so when a lawyer, who was a friend of a friend, told her about a baby whose planned adoptive parents had walked away and was now available, she agreed to become its mother.

She never received the child as the agency, which targeted wealthy couples over the internet, said in September 2009 that the surrogate had run away.

Stein told the New York Post: 'They told me she was a crackhead . . . a vegan, and she wanted to give birth with a doula [labour coach].

'In fact, she was already onto the agency and [ultimately] was the first person to contact the FBI. [She] is the heroine in all this.'

Within two weeks Stein was contacted by lawyer Hilary Neiman who told her another baby was now available as the intended parents of a Canadian child had backed out of the deal.

Although she thought it was 'weird' that she was not allowed to contact the surrogate, despite prospective parents usually encouraged to cultivate a relationship, she started wiring payments to the agency.

She received profiles of the supposed surrogate parents, who had blond hair and blue eyes, with their dates of birth and families' medical histories. But the information was all fake.

The truth of where the babies were coming from was much more seedy.

Prospective surrogate mothers were offered between $38,000 and $45,000 for their services.

They were then taken to Ukraine, where the population is overwhelming white and medical checks are not as stringent, to be implanted with fertilised eggs from anonymous donors.

Once the surrogate was 12 weeks pregnant a buyer was lined up and the pregnant mothers were then taken to California to give birth because it is one of the few states that lets the name of a non-biological parent to be put onto the birth certificate easily.

The scam, which saw at least 12 babies sold, worked for six years.

Hilary Neiman, 32; surrogacy lawyer Theresa Erickson, 43; and former surrogate Carla Chambers, 51, all pleaded guilty to wire-fraud charges and will be sentenced in October.

Once the trio had been caught, Stein made sure the surrogate mother was paid $26,000 and Neiman paid her back the remaining $154,000.

She has now formally adopted five-month-old Ren Friedrick, who was born in March 2011.

Stein is now working on a documentary called 'White Collar, Black Market - the Surrogacy Loophole' about the transparency of donors.

She said: 'My son has no information about the identity of his real parents, and I think that is a birth right.

'I want to go to the Ukraine to track down my son's donors so that he has some idea of his DNA, and change some laws in DC so that all adopted children have the right to find out the identity of their true parents.

'I want to make a change so my son doesn't feel the victim out of this. He's a game changer. Hopefully, after his story, everything will be different.'