Samoan attorney terms adoption charges 'rubbish'

He says children sent abroad had Samoan court approval and actions were lawful

March 7, 2007
By Brooke Adams

Allegations of wrongdoing by a Utah-based adoption agency are "rubbish," a Samoan attorney representing the company said.

Patrick Fepulea'i, one of the attorneys representing Focus on Children, criticized the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Attorney for Utah during a news conference Saturday in Apia, Samoa, according to the Samoa Observer.

During his remarks, Fepulea'i said all adoptions facilitated by the firm had been approved by a district court and met requirements of the country's 1961 Adoptive Ordinance.

Fepulea'i also said that, contrary to allegations in the 135-count indictment, all documents were translated into Samoan for the birth parents, the newspaper reported. He also said those parents were told their ties to the children would be severed.

Last Thursday, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted seven people associated with Focus on Children who allegedly were involved in an adoption fraud scheme.

Those named are: Scott and Karen Banks of Wellsville, Utah; Dan Wakefield, American Fork, Utah; Coleen Bartlett, Evanston, Wyo.; Karalee Thornock, Tooele, Utah; Tagaloa Ieti, Samoa, and Julie Tuiletufuga, Samoa.

According to court documents, the firm coerced birth parents into giving up children with money, humanitarian aid and misrepresentations about the future status of their children. Focus on Children also allegedly told adoptive parents the children were orphans. The scheme involved 81 children who ranged in age from infants to 12.

The charges have brought out critics and defenders of Focus on Children, whose experiences are chronicled on such Web sites as www.focsupport.com and www.focusonchildrensucks. org.

Fepulea'i told the Samoa Observer that the children, who came from "very poor families," were placed in a "nanny house" and characterized as orphans to meet U.S. adoption criteria. He said Samoan parents signed documents saying they couldn't care for the children, according to the newspaper report.

He told the newspaper that Ieti helped run the nanny house, which was located in Ululoloa. The home closed last year. Fepulea'i said Tuiletufuga had not been involved with Focus on Children since 2000.

The attorney said the allegations exemplify the disrespect the United States has for Samoan court processes, according to the Samoa Observer.

He said that an investigation into the 2005 death of a child who had been placed at the nanny house is ongoing.
 

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Alert immigration officer kindled adoption-fraud case

March 6, 2007
By Pamela Manson

As she was processing papers submitted by Utahns adopting children from foreign countries, immigration officer Rebecca Davis noticed something odd.

Prospective parents of Samoan youngsters were handling all the arrangements stateside, rather than following the standard procedure of traveling to Samoa to finalize the adoptions.

Her concerns about the anomaly prompted Davis, a district adjudications officer of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), to alert her superiors. That tip started an investigation by CIS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

A year and a half later, a federal grand jury last week issued a 135-count federal indictment accusing Focus on Children (FOC), a Wellsville-based private adoption agency, and seven of its operators of fraud and immigration violations. The indictment alleges that the defendants tricked and coerced Samoan birth parents into giving their children to FOC for adoption, then falsely told the adoptive parents that the youngsters were orphans.

The scam allegedly involved about 81 Samoan children placed in Utah and other states. The U.S. parents paid fees of $13,000 for the agency to facilitate the adoption and immigration of one child and $20,000 for two, according to the indictment.

Robert Mather, CIS field office director, said an immigration benefit can be voided if fraud is involved. He said CIS is working to reach a resolution.

"As an agency, we'll look after the best interests of the child and birthright parents and adoptive parents," Mather said.

In addition, U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman has stressed that his office has no interest in taking children away from adoptive parents.

"We are interested, where appropriate, in encouraging a dialogue between birth and adoptive parents," Tolman said in a written statement last week. "Our interest in this case is in stopping the alleged fraudulent conduct of Focus on Children in connection with these Samoan adoptions from reaching other families."

Davis and Mather said a foreign adoption can be complicated and that people should carefully select the agency that handles the matter.

"It's not an easy process," Mather said. "However, it can be very rewarding."

    pmanson@sltrib.com       

 

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Agency worker pleads not guilty in adoption scam

March 5, 2007
By Pamela Manson

One of the operators of Focus on Children in Utah pleaded not guilty Monday to felony charges that he duped birth parents in Samoa into giving their children to the Utah-based private adoption agency.

Dan Wakefield, 70, a U.S. citizen who has lived on the Pacific island for extended periods, entered his plea before Magistrate Samuel Alba in Salt Lake City. Alba ordered Wakefield to surrender his passport to the court until the case is resolved, but he did not detain him.

The magistrate also ruled that Wakefield, who is living in American Fork with his sister, is eligible for a court-appointed attorney.

A 135-count indictment unsealed Thursday accuses Focus on Children (FOC) and seven of its operators of lying to both birth parents and prospective adoptive parents.

The defendants allegedly told Samoan residents that their children would be temporarily placed in the United States to be educated and would return when they reached adulthood. The parents in the United States allegedly were told that the children were orphans and that the placements were permanent.

Federal authorities say the FOC scam involved about 81 children from 40 to 45 birth families. Approximately 10 of those were placed in Utah and the rest in other states.

The scam allegedly began no later than March 2002 and operated until June 2005.

The charges against FOC has caused anxiety on both sides of the adoption equation. On Friday, Brett Tolman, the U.S. attorney for Utah, stressed that his office "has no interest in taking children away from adoptive parents." The office is working to put birth parents and adoptive parents in touch, he said.

Prosecutors allege that Wakefield worked as a recruiter in Samoa, actively soliciting and coercing birth parents into relinquishing their children.

At the time the indictment was unsealed last week, the U.S. Attorney's Office believed Wakefield was living in Samoa. However, Wakefield called the office over the weekend to say he was back in Utah and appeared as directed at Monday's hearing, according to Dustin Pead, an assistant U.S. attorney who is prosecuting the case.

The other defendants besides FOC and Wakefield are Scott Banks, 46, of Wellsville; Karen Banks, 45, Wellsville; Tagaloa Ieti, 44, Samoa; Julie Tuiletufuga, age unknown, Samoa; Coleen Bartlett, 40, Evanston, Wyo.; and Karalee Thornock, 34, Tooele.

Scott Banks, Karen Banks, Bartlett and Thornock had court appearances last week before U.S. Magistrate David Nuffer in Salt Lake City. The government did not seek their detention pending resolution of the case. The next hearing for them and Wakefield is scheduled for April 2.

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Samoa. It will petition the Samoan government to deliver the other three defendants to U.S. jurisdiction.

    pmanson@sltrib.com
 

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Claims about 'orphans' key in shady adoptions

Samoans say families do not abandon kids; Utah moves to revoke license

March 3, 2007
By Brooke Adams and Pamela Manson

One little word could have clued adoptive families working with Focus on Children that something might be amiss with the adoption agency.

That word: Orphan.

In Samoa, where extended family is the "most important facet" of society, there is no such term.

"Everything in Samoa relates to family," said Paul Cox, director of the Institute for Ethnomedicine in Provo and, after decades working in the country, an expert on Samoan culture. "The thought that we have orphanages is appalling to Samoans."

A 135-count federal indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the Wellsville-based Focus on Children (FOC) and seven of its operators of duping parents in Samoa into giving their children to the agency. The indictment alleges the defendants lied to prospective adoptive parents in the United States by saying the youngsters were orphans and needed homes.

On Friday, the Utah Department of Human Services began proceedings to revoke FOC's license, first issued in 2003, said spokeswoman Carol Sisco.

Federal authorities say the FOC scam involved more than 80 children - eight to 10 of whom were placed in Utah - and began no later than March 2002 and operated until June 2005. The birth parents believed the youngsters were being temporarily placed in U.S. homes and would return when they reached adulthood, according to the indictment. Instead, FOC placed the children permanently with U.S. parents, the indictment says.

Facing federal charges are Scott and Karen Banks, of Wellsville; Dan Wakefield, of Utah; Tagaloa Ieti, of Samoa; Julie Tuiletufuga, of Samoa; Coleen Bartlett of Evanston, Wyo.; and Karalee Thornock, of Tooele.

The defendants are charged with conspiracy, immigration violations - including visa fraud - and money laundering. The maximum prison terms for the offenses range from five years to 20 years. Wakefield, who for years lived in Samoa, will have an initial appearance Monday at 9:30 a.m. in U.S. Magistrate Judge Sam Alba's courtroom.

FOC charged adoption fees of $13,000 for one child and $20,000 for two. In addition, adoptive parents had to pay other expenses, including the cost of traveling to New Zealand to file immigration forms at the U.S. consulate there.

The agency reportedly persuaded Samoan parents to turn over their children to FOC, offering money, food and other "humanitarian assistance" and promises the children would be educated abroad and later returned home.

The agency also allegedly claimed to be affiliated with the U.S. government or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the indictment said.

The LDS Church on Friday said in a statement that it has no affiliation with FOC. Spokesman Scott Trotter said the church is affiliated only with LDS Family Services, which does adoptions.

But the claim was a selling point for FOC in Samoa, where about 30 percent of the population is Mormon.

FOC allegedly placed some Samoan children in a "nanny home" where they waited for the adoptions to be completed. FOC told some adoptive parents that children were at the nanny home when in fact they were with their birth parents, the indictment said.

Conditions were so poor at the "nanny home" that one malnourished toddler died two days after her birth parents took her to a hospital, the indictment alleges.

To keep adoptive parents from learning of the conditions or of any objections by the birth parents, the FOC operators allegedly discouraged travel to Samoa by falsely claiming there was an outbreak of German measles or that a hurricane had hit the South Pacific island.

Sisco said her department was getting complaints about FOC by 2004 and had become concerned in general about adoptions from Samoa.

Some of the complaints involved lack of communication to prospective adoptive families, she said. The department did spot checks on FOC paperwork but had no way of knowing whether any of the signatures by parents agreeing to adoptions of their children were coerced, Sisco said.

The girl's death in 2005 prompted Samoan authorities to toughen the nation's adoption laws, according to the Samoa Observer. In the case of a foreign adoption, the Samoan attorney general must certify there are no suitable family members in Samoa who are willing and able to care for the child and there is no other suitable arrangement available in the country.

But Utah officials continued to get complaints about FOC, Sisco said, and state agencies coordinated with federal authorities on their investigation.

At least one of those charged has ties to another troubled venture. Wakefield was a partner in New Hope Academy, a residential treatment facility set up in Apia, Samoa, in mid-1998. It closed just months later, stranding five teens.

Wakefield blamed the failure of New Hope Academy on a consultant it hired, Steve Cartisano, who left Utah after a teen died in a wilderness therapy program he founded.

The indictment alleges Wakefield lied to Samoans and adoptive parents about the circumstances surrounding the adoptions, the conditions in which the children lived and why their birth parents would relinquish them. Allegedly, he and other recruiters also actively solicited and pressured Samoan parents to give their children up for adoption.

Wakefield's involvement in FOC came as a "shock" to some who know him.

"My understanding was he was helping the government of Samoa with treating sick animals," said Fotu Aiono, a Samoan native and retired accountant who has lived in Utah since 1963. "As far as orphanages in Samoa, I don't think they have any."

Gaugau Tavana, of Hawaii, a native Samoan and Brigham Young University graduate who has worked with Cox, said calling the children orphans was "absolutely absurd."

"We don't abandon children in Samoa," he said. "There is a place for everyone."

Cox said children in Samoa move freely within the extended family, commonly being raised by other relatives.

"It would be very easy for Western people and Polynesian people to have misunderstandings concerning adoption," he said. "In our culture, adoption is considered a one-way street, and that would not be clear or obvious to a Polynesian."

In the Samoan culture, there is an expectation that someone sent abroad to be educated or to work will send money home to support family, Cox said. Such remittances are the largest source of foreign income in the Samoan economy, he said.

"In the Samoan worldview, one of the worst things that can happen to you is to be banished from your extended family and not have any more contact," Cox said.

    brooke@sltrib.com
    pmanson@sltrib.com
   
    \Samoa facts
    * Location: Two islands and seven small islets about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand.
    * Territory: Slightly smaller than Rhode Island.
    * Population: 177,714 est.
    * Government: Mix of parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.
    * Economy: Dependent on development aid and family remittances from overseas. Vulnerable to devastating storms. Agriculture employs two-thirds of labor force.
   
    'No interest' in taking kids from adoptive parents
   
    * On Friday, U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman tried to reassure parents - both here and in Samoa - about the situation.
    "We recognize that learning of this alleged conspiracy has created anxiety for both birth and adoptive parents of the children in this case," he said, adding that his office "has no interest in taking children away from adoptive parents. We are interested, where appropriate, in encouraging a dialogue between birth and adoptive parents."
   
    * The Salt Lake Tribune would like to hear from families who have adopted children from Samoa or worked with Focus on Children. Please call 801-257-8742 or e-mail Assistant Managing Editor Peg McEntee at pegmcentee@sltrib.com.
 

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Utah adoption agency hit by fraud allegations : Agency is suspected of swindling Samoans out of their children

March 2, 2007
By Pamela Manson

Operators of a private adoption agency in Utah are accused of duping parents in Samoa into giving them their children and then falsely describing the youngsters as orphans to prospective adoptive parents in the United States.

More than 80 children were illegally taken from their families by conspirators working through the Wellsville office of Focus on Children (FOC), according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. The agency allegedly charged the adoptive parents a fee of $13,000 to facilitate the adoption and immigration of a Samoan child.

Both sides of the adoption process had acted in good faith, authorities said. The alleged fraud leaves the status of the children and their placement in U.S. homes, including some in Utah and Wyoming, uncertain.

"For the birth parents in Samoa, who believed they were only temporarily releasing their children, the pain in palpable," Thomas Depenbrock, of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said at a Thursday news conference in Salt Lake City. "For the adoptive parents accepting children they were told were uncared for and in need of good homes, the deceit is shocking."

The indictment alleges the conspiracy began no later than March 2002 and continued through June 2005. The children ranged from infants to 12-year-olds.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman said authorities are working to put the birth parents and adoptive parents in touch to discuss a resolution. If no agreement is reached, courts in either or both countries might become involved in determining on a case-by-case basis who gets legal custody of the adoptees.

"It is impossible to articulate how deep the pain is," Tolman said.

The indictment charges FOC and seven individuals with a total of 135 counts: Two of conspiracy, 37 of bringing in illegal aliens to the United States; 37 of encouraging or inducing illegal aliens to come to, enter or reside in the United States; 34 of fraud and misuse of visas; 19 of laundering of monetary instruments; and six of monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity.

Named as defendants are Scott Banks, 46, of Wellsville; Karen Banks, 45, Wellsville; Dan Wakefield, 70, a U.S. citizen living in Apia, Samoa; Tagaloa Ieti, 44, Samoa; Julie Tuiletufuga, age unknown, Samoa; Coleen Bartlett, 40, Evanston, Wyo.; Karalee Thornock, 34, Tooele; and FOC.

Scott Banks, Karen Banks, Bartlett and Thornock had court appearances Thursday morning before U.S. Magistrate David Nuffer in Salt Lake City. The government did not seek detention pending resolution of the case; the next hearing is scheduled for April 2. None of the defendants could be reached for comment Thursday.

However, Marci Larsen of Wellsville said she has been a friend of the Banks' since they moved in across the street eight years ago. She said the couple has biological and adopted children.

"They are people of the highest character. They always want to help other people," Larsen said. "I know that they are extremely kind, and they are extremely considerate for other people and other people's needs. They have done a lot of good in the world for children everywhere and I think these charges are very unfair."

Defense attorney Rebecca Hyde, who represents FOC and Karen Banks, told The Associated Press that "Focus on Children and Karen Banks have been cooperating with the federal government for many, many months. They have always endeavored to maintain the highest ethical standards they could.''

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Samoa. It will petition the Samoan government to deliver the other three defendants to the U.S. jurisdiction.

Adoption in Samoa does not involve any legal proceeding or a formal severance of parental rights. Samoan citizens routinely consent to the "adoption" of their children for a variety of reasons to relatives living in other parts of the country or abroad.

After the placement, the birth parents typically communicate and visit with the child, with the expectation that he or she will return to them as an adult to care for them as they age.

The indictment alleges that FOC employed recruiters in Samoa to persuade birth parents to place their children in an international adoption. It says these recruiters targeted Samoan children for adoption by surveilling marketplaces for mothers, approaching pregnant women and even conducting presentations to groups of parents about the FOC "program."

These parents allegedly were persuaded to participate in the program through lies that included:

* The adoption program was created by the U.S. government or by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to assist families in Samoa that were struggling financially or desired that their children be educated abroad. Neither the government nor the church were involved with FOC.

* The children would be "adopted" by a family in the United States and remain there until age 18, then return to Samoa.

* The birth family would receive letters and photos from the adoptive family.

* The birth family might receive money either from FOC or the adoptive family until the children returned and could help take care of them.

* The adoptive family would occasionally bring the children back for visits.

* Siblings placed in the program would be adopted by the same family in the United States.

    Some birth families considering placing their child in the program were given what conspirators called 'humanitarian assistance," such as nominal amounts of money or bags of rice, the indictment alleges. The assistance allegedly stopped when the child was delivered to the adoptive parents.

After taking custody of the children, the recruiters would place them in a "nanny home" - the Samoan equivalent of a foster home - until the "adoption" proceedings were completed, according to the indictment.

Conditions at the nanny home operated by FOC allegedly were so poor that many children were malnourished and dehydrated. Older children reported being beaten with a broomstick when they asked for more food.

The birth parents of one little girl were so concerned about how her health had deteriorated since moving to the nanny house that they took her to a hospital, where she died two days later, the indictment says.

The defendants allegedly discouraged the adoptive parents from traveling to Samoa to pick up their newly adopted children and the ones who did go overseas were forbidden from seeing the nanny home.

FOC also employed people in Utah and Wyoming to refer children to a new family, even when the youngsters still were living with their parents in Samoa, the indictment claims. It says the defendants frequently fabricated statements about the birth family to convince prospective adoptive parents that the children were living in dire circumstances.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

pmanson@sltrib.com
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* ARRIN NEWTON BRUNSON contributed to this report.
  
Federal charges

    A 135-count federal indictment was unsealed Thursday charging the operators of Focus on Children in Wellsville with lying to parents in Samoa to persuade them to place their children for adoption through the agency.

    * The indictment alleges birth parents were falsely told that the placements were temporary and their children would return to Samoa when they reached adulthood. Adoptive parents, who paid $13,000 for each adoption,
allegedly were told that the children had been abandoned or were orphans.

    * Authorities say the scam involved more than 80 children. Seven people have been charged in the case.
   
    Focus on Children

 

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Utah agency indicted in Samoa adoption scam

March 1, 2007