Former Director of Adoption Agency Pleads Guilty to Grand Theft

Attorney General Bill McCollum News Release

October 26, 2009

Media Contact: Jenn Meale

Phone: (850) 245-0150en Español Print Version

Former Director of Adoption Agency Pleads Guilty to Grand Theft

~ Woman must pay $178,000 in restitution to her victims ~

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his Office of Statewide Prosecution has secured a plea agreement from a woman charged with stealing money from adoptive parents for adoption proceedings.

, the former director of Tampa-based

, must repay $178,000 to her victims, most of whom were adoptive parents who were using West’s agency for their adoption. West pleaded guilty to first-degree grand theft today in Hillsborough County.

The parties to adoption proceedings typically include the adoptive parents, a placement agency, and the birth parents. Confidentiality laws exist to protect the identities of the birth parents and the adoptive parents; typically, the only party who knows the true identity of both sets of parents is the adoption agency. Adoptions are concluded at legal hearings called “finalizations,” at which adoption agencies must submit an affidavit of expenses and receipts to the family law court. These sworn affidavits are itemized accountings of how the agency spent each adoptive couple’s money, often large sums of “birth mother expenses” paid to the birth parents.

According to the investigation conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, West and her agency collected birth mother expenses from adoptive couples under the guise that the money would be extended to the birth mother, but would extend little or none of it to the birth mother. West and her agency would then submit fraudulent affidavits to the court, claiming to have spent all the couple’s money faithfully.

Many of the fraudulent affidavits claimed thousands of dollars were spent on hospital-related expenses associated with the birth mother’s pregnancy when in reality, the birth mothers were covered by Medicaid or private insurance. In some cases, where money was actually extended to the birth mother on the adoptive couple’s behalf, West would submit proof of the payments to a charitable organization known to reimburse adoption agencies for birth mother expenses. In most cases, West, through her agency, ended up pocketing the vast majority of the money and creating false documents in order to conceal the embezzlement.

West’s license was eventually revoked by Department of Children and Family in early 2005 after an administrative proceeding. However, because Florida allows adoption agencies to also be licensed by certain qualifying religious organizations, West continued placing adoptions under a license she received from a child care organization. That entity also revoked West’s authority to place children under its authority in late 2006.

The criminal charges, filed by the Office of Statewide Prosecution in late 2008, focused on embezzlement that occurred from August of 2002 through May of 2005. West will be sentenced in early 2010 and at the time of her sentencing, must pay $178,000 to her victims. The plea was entered in front of the Honorable Judge William Fuente of Hillsborough.