Agency director allowed fraudulent adoption that led to child’s abuse in Texas, feds say
The founder of an international adoption agency in Ohio has pleaded guilty to her role in the fraudulent adoption of a Polish child who was later abused in Texas, officials say. Margaret Cole, 74, of Strongsville, Ohio, admitted to conspiring with agency employee Debra Parris, 69, and others in transferring the child to people ineligible for intercountry adoption, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
Those people were two relatives of Parris, who has previously pleaded guilty to her involvement in the scheme. The lead defense attorney representing Cole did not immediately respond to a request for comment by McClatchy News. Officials say Cole’s agency European Adoption Consultants — where she was executive director — was helping a client adopt one child in or around 2015. About that time, the agency informed the client they may be able to adopt two siblings from Poland.
Sometime around May 2015, after approval for an intercountry adoption, the client traveled to Poland and met with both children, according to court documents. While there, the client “developed concerns” regarding if they could “meet the physical and emotional needs of both siblings.” The client expressed that concern to a person providing consulting services to the agency, officials say, and the consultant warned the child would be “red-marked” and unlikely to be adopted if the client turned down both siblings.
The client was advised to adopt both and find a new family for one of the children after returning to the U.S., according to court documents. That’s when the client contacted Cole to express the same concern about raising two children and “expressed a strong desire” to find another family for the second child, according to court documents. Cole identified Parris’ relatives as a potential option for the second child, and ultimately the relatives were selected.
Without completing a home study or criminal background check, the agency helped oversee the transfer of custody from the client to Parris’ relatives in July 2015, officials say. This did not meet the requirements regarding adoptions from Poland. As the Parris relatives worked to finalize the adoption, one provided information regarding their criminal history — including a domestic violence arrest — to the social worker, court documents say. Parris learned of this around December 2015, officials say, and the adoption was completed under Texas law around February 2016.
Officials say Cole and the agency submitted false reports in April 2016 regarding the situation in attempt to conceal the fraudulent adoption. Later that year, in August, the child was taken to a children’s hospital in Fort Worth with “significant injuries in several areas,” according to records. The child was removed from the home and police began investigating.
Authorities called this child abuse case one of the most horrific in North Texas, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported, adding that Parris’ son was accused of using “a Barbie doll to cause severe trauma to the private parts of his 5-year-old adopted daughter.” Parris’ son, identified by the Star-Telegram as John Tufts, was sentenced to 28 years in prison in March 2019 after he was charged with injury to a child — serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony, following the fraudulent adoption. His now ex-wife, Georgiana Tufts, was sentenced to 10 years of probation, 90 days in jail and 240 community service hours, the newspaper reported.
Following the abuse, “Cole made a false statement to the Polish authority responsible for intercountry adoptions about the transfer of the child that, among other things, concealed the role of Cole and others in arranging the transfer of the child to Parris’s relatives,” according to the Department of Justice. Parris is scheduled to be sentenced on March 9 and Cole is scheduled to be sentenced on May 27. Anyone who is believed to be a victim of this offense is asked to visit www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/victim-witness-program or call 888-549-3945.