' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Utah Supreme Court delays return of Baby Teleah to her father

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Utah Supreme Court delays return of Baby Teleah to her father

'Elated': Terry Achane, pictured with his daughter, was 'completely elated' this week after a judge ruled the 21-month-old be handed back to him by mid-January
Teleah with her daddy, Terry Achane
The Utah Supreme Court yesterday put a temporary hold on a trial judge's orders to return a little girl to her soldier father, Terry Achane, after she was given up for adoption without his consent two years ago. The little girl is being held by Jared and Kristi Frei, a couple who proceeded with their plan to adopt her, fully aware that her girl's father, married to her mother, had not given his consent. 

Does this sound like legalized kidnapping to you? Sure does to us. Involved in this chicanery is a corrupt adoption agency (Adoption Center of Choice), a supposedly law-abiding and god-fearing couple (the Freis) and the Utah Supreme Court. The fight is not over yet by any
means. Achane has good lawyers and much support, but the fact that the Utah Supreme Court responded favorably to the illicit transfer of this child--and ordered a delay in her return--makes me decry the mind set of the people who run the damn state of Utah and underlying ethos of the church that is so influential there, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or Mormons. If that were not so, we would not be reading about so many cases of children separated from their natural fathers in the state of Utah. From Jane's experience as a lawyer working in securities regulation, she found that Utah officials are often reluctant to enforce laws when the offenders are members of the LDS Church, the same church as many, if not most, of the state regulators in Utah.

ADOPTION APARTHEID IN UTAH
On its website, the center claims to have facilitated about 1,400 successful adoptions since its founding in 1995. According to its corporate registration filing, it has done business under eight other names in the past, including A Heart of Gold Adoptions, An All American Adoption Agency, A Bridge Adoption Services and A Adoption with Love (about which we have written numerous times). These unscrupulous practices are allowed to flourish in Utah because the Mormon religion, which is so big in Utah, promotes the quick transfer of children away from their natural parents unless they suit the standards of the Church: Married, and it probably helps if you are White, given that it was only in 1978 did the the Church begin allowing black men of African descent to be full members. In regards to adoption, Utah is similar to South Africa before the end of apartheid: stuck in another era. Surely there must be social workers who are not such scum as the people who run the agencies listed above, but they do not have the power or influence to change the adoption apartheid prevalent in Utah

Fighting: Utah couple Jared and Kristi Frei, pictured with Leah, have filed a motion asking that Judge Darold McDade stay his order dismissing their adoption petition and requiring the baby be returned
 The picture says it all;
they call her "Leah"
 
Drill sergeant Terry Achane was waiting in Dallas airport to board a flight to Utah when he was told that a hearing scheduled for yesterday, that would have likely reunited him with baby Teleah, was cancelled.
"'He's extremely disappointed,' his attorney, Mark Wiser, told MailOnline. 'He's waited almost two years to gain custody of his daughter. Everyday without her is heart-wrenching.'"  

As we reported her earlier, Achane won the long legal battle in November to gain custody of his toddler, who his wife placed with the Freis without telling him. In a 48-page ruling, Judge Darold McDade ordered the girl's adoptive parents to return her to him within the next 60 days. The turnover of the girl was supposed to happen yesterday (the 16th), and we waited for news it had happened. Instead we learned that the usual tactics of keeping a child from her legal, biological parents had occurred: in response to an appeal from Freis, a temporary stay was granted. This is a usual stall tactic for delaying the return of a child to his or her natural parents, and then the adopters can claim too much time has gone by to take the child "from the only parents she has known." In his ruling, McDade condemned the agency for refusing to disclose any information to him nearly two years ago when he learned that his child had been given away without his consent, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Lorraine
The unscrupulous people who run the Adoption Center of Choice agency that organized the phony adoption had been under the scrutiny of state licensing officials for three months, and operating under a corrective action plan since September when its license was extended, but not renewed. The extension was due to expire at the end of December, but the case of baby Teleah (her father's name for her) has raised new questions and prompted additional review. A couple, Wes and Becky Jones, are suing the same agency for the return of fees for adoptions that did not occur, as the supposed birth mother was not even pregnant. A Florida couple is also suing the same agency for negligently misrepresenting their fees and operating a "Ponzi scheme," shifting funds between prospective adoptive couples. 

WHAT DO THEY SAY TO GOD?
Baby snatcher/prospective adopter Jared Frei, incidentally, is an attorney. Whom do I dislike more? The people who run Utah adoption agencies or adoptive father/attorneys who think this kind of behavior is moral?  Hard for me to decide. I have done battle with lots of adoptive father-attorneys over the years and they generally are mean and nasty. They raise their voices and talk about contracts, how much money they paid for their child, and demand: what gives me the right to say anything?! They sound as if they are rehearsing for a guest shot on Law and Order. 

One wonders what the Freis say to their God when they go to church. We must have this baby because we are better people than her biological father? Because we are more deserving than her natural father? Because we have more money? Please let people donate more to our plea for funds so that we can continue this fight to keep a child from her real father? Because a baby has to have a married mother and father? Because we are holier than? Because we deserve to have a black baby to make the other black baby we adopted have someone of his own color in the house?

I can only imagine that somehow they justify their immoral acts. I find them sick, this story twisted, the stay of the Utah Supreme Court unconscionable.--lorraine
-------------------------------------------- 

SOURCES

The Freis blog where they ask for donations to fight Archane: http://frei-adoption.com/Frei/Leah.html 
For a news video about the case, see below. 


From FMF
Utah: Sewer Pit of the Adoption Industry
Utah judge voids adoption, orders girl returned to her father
Adoption in Utah: No place for birth fathers
Utah agency places cast-off international adoptees

Reading
Fifty Years In 13 Days: A Mother/Daughter Reunion 
(See above)
In May 2007, Jackie found Katie, a daughter she had surrendered for adoption in 1957. Over the course of 13 days, Katie and Jackie communicated solely via email before meeting in person. Their messages tell the story of the intervening 50 years and how each prepared for their first face-to-face meeting.
"This is a feel good story of a Mother daughter meeting, 50 years after the daughter was put up for adoption, and how at this stage in their lives they were both very open to exploring the possibilities of a lasting relationship. Much of it is recounted through their e-mails to each other."--Amazon reviewer

Baby Richard: A Four-Year-Old Comes Home
"This landmark case for adoption and for fathers’ rights was debated across the country and in Europe, Canada, and Australia. Baby Richard raged through the courts at every level and led to new laws in thirty states. With her clients’ permission, Dr. Karen Moriarty--who donated her services to the child and his family--reveals this rare, behind-the-scenes view of the real people and their passions, struggles, defeats, and victories. Her book provides the exclusive update on all of the major players in the bitter conflict and on the child himself, his parents and sisters, including photographs." --Amazon


 

8 comments :

  1. Seeing a picture of the natural father vs. adopted father the baby belongs with her natural father. He is better equip to raising the baby because of her heritage. White, Mormon,adopted vs her natural father doesn't make sense to me.

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  2. This case is just absolutely disgusting. I also read on the Support Terry's Facebook page that these adoptive "parents" (I call them human traffickers, but whatever) signed a document promising to relinquish Leah if the father showed that he wanted custody.

    I guess their word means nothing, even if it's in form of a signed contract.

    What these people have done, to Terry and to Leah, is absolutely deplorable and disgusting.

    Also, UTAH needs to get it's act together! It's the only state that allows these sham, thieving adoptions to take place. Get with the times, UTAH! You are total embarrassment to our country.

    Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick.

    I'll pray for Leah and Terry continually until they are reunited.

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  3. This story is outrageous. How is this not legalized kidnapping? It's bad enough they steal the kids of unwed father but now they are going after married men as well. No one is safe.

    Back in the day, there was an attempt to place a child in a family with a similar background to his original family. Now that we are all so enlightened and open-minded it makes no difference at all if a child is raised in a family of a different race or ethnicity, since we all know love is all that matters.

    What I wonder though is if we really are race blind and being African American, Native American, Hispanic, or any other minority in this country, is equal and just as good as being caucasian, why is is that so many of these PAPs, the ones who seem to end up with the kids, are white? It looks like white privilege to me.

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  4. Everywhere I go I see a lot of people talking about how sweet and squeaky clean mormon people are, how their spreading "good family oriented values."

    As for being "family oriented" and squeaky clean, as I said before. It's a confirmed fact that the state of Utah, consumes more porn than any other state. So in other words appearances can be deceiving, just because a man is wearing a suite and tie, the woman is dressed like a kindergarten teacher, acts all sweet and has college degrees, doesn't mean they're fit to parent.

    I also heard that the family who adopted those two children from Africa, locked them in a basement for more than a month, also looked like the picture prefect family. They even had a beautiful two story house.

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  5. Very good news today - the stay has been denied and Teleah will go home with her father while waiting the outcome of the Utah Supreme Court appeal.

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  6. In your list of villains (LDS, the agency, the PAPs), you missed one, the first/birth mother.

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  7. Some of us have still hope for her, Anomymous...

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  8. They were reunited last night and court today made it official.

    There is still the hearing by the USC as to whether they will accept the appeal - that's at end of March. Here's hoping they don't.

    ReplyDelete

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