A lawyer who was a specialist in reproductive law, her job was to smooth the way for couples to adopt babies, but Theresa Erickson is the latest of three lawyers to plead guilty to conning money out of them in what prosecutors called a ‘baby-selling ring,’ Who were charging couples $100,000 to adopt babies.
@wiL

The 43-year-old was part of a scam that charged a dozen couples more than $100,000 (£61,000) to adopt babies born from surrogate pregnancies.
Erickson, of Poway, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud yesterday. According to her plea agreement, Erickson along with a Maryland-based lawyer who also specialises in reproductive law and a Las Vegas woman, recruited women to travel to the Ukraine to be implanted with embryos created from the sperm and egg of donors.

Once a gestational carrier, or surrogate, was four to seven months’ pregnant, prosecutors claimed the defendants would ‘shop’ the babies by falsely telling couples that a couple who had intended to adopt the baby backed out of the deal.

The new couple that agreed to adopt the unborn baby were asked to stump up $100,000 in fees. Women who agreed to carry the babies to term were paid from $38,000 to $45,000, court documents said.
While most of the surrogates and adoptive parents lived outside of California, prosecutors said the defendants broke state law by falsely declaring with the San Diego Superior Court that the unborn baby was part of an agreement made between the surrogate and the couple before pregnancy.
The law is designed to prevent profit making from the sale of parental rights. By falsely declaring the unborn baby was the result of a legitimate surrogacy arrangement, prosecutors said the defendants obtained pre-birth judgments that named the adoptive parents on the babies’ birth certificates.
DM