This is the second post in a series I have done around the Adam Herrman/Irvin Groeninger III case. I urge readers to explore both my earlier work and later posts to gain familiarity with the case and my interpretation of it. See my Irvin Groeninger III tag for more. My most recent post will always appear first on the tag.

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Obviously, there have been a torrent of articles, media interviews etc about the “Adam Herrman” / Irvin Groeninger III case. I’ve been combing through such trying pull out some of what actually matters. This is my second post about the boy. New readers will want to first read through that initial posting, Adam Herrman- homeschooled and gone missing for years, parents continued to receive subsidies.

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KWCH has a useful set of profiles to help readers keep all the various personalities in the Adam Herrman story straight:

Adam Herrman’s Family

To that, readers can also add this article, Adam Herrman Missing: Biological Mother Speaks, in which Gerri George is identified as Adam’s mother. She recalls how her parental rights were terminated:

She said, “I didn’t exactly give him up. They kept — the county kept throwing my past of what my parents did to me. And they more or less said that I would repeat history again with my own children. And it seems like they’re the ones who are repeating the history of what my parents did to me. But they’re doing it with my own kids.

Both of his parents Gerri and Irvin were interviewed on Larry King Live, on Jan 7th. Separately, later on in the broadcast the Herrman’s lawyer was on as well.

The boy’s father brings up what should have been obvious:

GROENINGER: Right. Yes. I’ve got all kinds of questions about that, how a doctor whose seen him during his first 11 years didn’t — all of a sudden, you know, he ain’t showing up for doctor visits anymore. He ain’t showing up for dentist visits anymore. They said he was under psychiatric care. He’s not showing up for psychiatric care anymore. Somebody had to miss him.

Adam had originally been named Irvin Groeninger III. According to his mother, he apparently entered state custody around age 2.

“I had been a little bit not exactly a good parent,” she said, adding she had left a bruise on an older child.

Still, she said, she did her best to give her children a good home. She last saw her son when he was about 4.

Adam’s older biological sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, now 22 and living in Wichita, lived for a time with Adam’s adoptive family before being adopted by someone else.

Broadfoot remembers Adam having dark, almost curly hair and “this cute, really round face.” She last saw him at a birthday party when he was 5 or 6.

Over the years, she said, she called the adoptive mother to ask how he was doing.

At first, Broadfoot said, the adoptive mother said Adam was OK. But about three years ago, she said, the woman asked her not to call again because she didn’t want Adam and two younger siblings to know they were adopted.

Broadfoot tried again, without success, to contact Adam last year, she said.

Then last month, she said, her biological father called and said, “Are you sitting down? Because I need to talk to you.”

He said a detective told him that Adam had been missing since 1999.

“He (the detective) said he’s been missing nine years, and that just blew my mind,” Groeninger said.

(Emphasis added)

I detailed Tiffany’s brief stay with the Herrmans in my first post about Irvin/Adam. As I pointed out there, it appears to have been the Herrman’s biological daughter’s tip that kicked off the investigation, see Missing boy’s sister was one who called officials.

So according to Broadfoot, Valerie Herrman was at least saying she wanted to keep the fact of the kids’ adoptions from them, and utilized such as an excuse to try to make his sister stop attempting contact him. She was saying this three years ago, or approximately 6 years after his “disappearance.” Adoption secrecy makes a great excuse to never have to put the kid on the phone.

While his sister was being stonewalled later on, his adopted aunt, Kim Winslow saw him at least a few times over the years while the boy was still with the Herrmans. Her recounting of the final time she saw him, locked in chains in the bathroom, no one bringing him food or water over the course of hours really makes one wonder how the hell she never one contacted the authorities in light of what she and other family members were seeing.

I STRONGLY urge readers to watch the full video interview with Winslow on the video link here, Missing Boy’s Aunt Regrets Not Reporting Abuse.

There can be no excuse for not reporting, when you see a kid locked up like that you don’t sit back and watch the game and socialize. You don’t pretend everything ok, or that a child chained up like that could ever be any semblance of “normal”.

I don’t particularly care what quack pseudo-diagnosis (see For the Last Time, “Attachment Disorder” DOES NOT EXIST!) a kid has been labeled with,

Psychiatrists said Adam was either bipolar or schizophrenic or suffering from attachment disorder, they said.

Nor do I care that the Herrmans’ claim they kept him locked in the bathroom on the “advice of a psychiatrist.” There can simply be no excuse for pretending the kid locked away like that does not warrant at minimum a phone call to the local police.

But despite article after article now discussing “regrets” and discomfort, etc, that call that would have led to his rescue never came.

As to who precisely is to blame here, I don’t think we have a firm enough grasp on what happened to pinpoint responsibility just yet, but I do think someone should be looking at not only the relatives some of whom were aware of the boy’s plight and yet did nothing, but also whether or not “attachment” quackery played a role in his suffering, as it has in a number of adoptees’ deaths to date.

Herrman later explained Adam’s disappearance away as him having gone back into the child welfare system, and thus family members such as Winslow made the erroneous assumption that he was “safe.” While this was perhaps an excuse in line with the Herrman’s previous history with Irvin/Adam’s biological sister having been removed from the Herrman home, (see Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy.)

At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail. They said authorities removed one of Adam’s younger sisters, then about 2, but said she was not removed because of child abuse.

It is still yet another of those adoption related excuses/lies that made it easier for friends and family to excuse the boy’s absence.

Herrman’s former sister in law, Linda Bush described the excuse thusly:

Bush said the Herrmans told other family members that they had turned Adam back to the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services. She said she had no reason to believe otherwise because the couple had other foster children who went back to state custody.

“They had turned other children back, whether voluntary or mandated,” Bush said. “Nobody had any reason to disbelieve. Who would think of something so heinous happening? Nobody did.”

Irvin/Adam’s adoption saga is very much in line with what many foster/adoption kids experience.

Born in born in Wichita in June 1987, he was removed from his parents’ custody after his mother bruised an older child, his parents were divorced. At about age 2, Irvin came to live with the Herrmans first as a foster child, then later her was adopted and renamed Adam.

His father, tried to regain custody, but despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, his parental rights were terminated (see this good AP story from 2 days ago, Boy’s 1999 disappearance raises questions, regrets.)

The boy’s biological father, Irvin Groeninger II, also expressed regret. The Indiana trucker was divorced when authorities took Adam and his siblings from their mother’s home after alleged abuse. He says he was cleared of any wrongdoing and tried to get custody of his children, but child welfare officials terminated his parental rights.

“Basically, I have lost him twice,” Groeninger said.

The boy — whom he knows only by his birth name of Irvin Groeninger III — was 18 months old when Groeninger last saw him. He had hoped his son would try to contact him when he was old enough to search for his biological family.

He says he wishes he could tell his son: “I love him and I wish I had fought harder back then to get him and keep him in my custody.”

While Adam and two younger siblings were adopted by the Herrmans, Adam’s older biological sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, was adopted by another Wichita family. Broadfoot has not seen her brother since a birthday party when he was 7 or 8 years old.

Broadfoot said the first time she called Adam’s adoptive mother she was told everything was fine and Adam was doing well. Other times she was told not to call again because Adam and his siblings did not know they were adopted.

In August or September, she called Valerie Herrman again. “The last time I talked to her she was very in my face and very adamant: `You have no business calling here. You have no right. That is not your family. Don’t call here. Don’t talk to us. Don’t do anything. That is not your concern. Back off,'” Broadfoot said.

Naturally, as the boy had been missing for the past 9 years, Broadfoot’s call last August or September apparently unleashed quite a reaction.

The same article contains yet another account, this time from Linda Bush, of how Valerie Herrman mistreated Irvin:

Linda Bush, a former sister-in-law of Valerie Herrman, remembered Adam as a timid little boy. She has not seen him since he was at least 6 years old.

“He wasn’t boisterous, running around making a lot of noise like other children. And he stared a lot. That was strange,” Bush said. “He gave me the creeps sometimes because he would stare. But it was nothing to hate him for.”

Bush said she remembered Valerie Herrman telling the boy he was stupid.

“It was the tone. It was constant. She constantly berated him and put him down, a hateful tone,” Bush said. “It was constant and we couldn’t figure out what that boy had ever done to make her hate him like that.”

The Herrmans did not treat Adam’s two younger siblings the same way, she said.

In my initial post, I brought up the repeated accounts of “missed opportunities.” While we have multiple perspectives/police statement from relatives admitting they failed to report what the boy was enduring:

Winslow, now living outside the Wichita area, and some of Herrman’s other close relatives said they saw Herrman abuse Adam other times over the years but for the most part didn’t report it and now feel terrible that he is missing.

There were also instances where clearly there was some interaction with external authorities, only one of which seems to have resulted in the Herrman’s losing the boy, and in that case, he was removed for a mere two days:

• “In at least one instance, a relative reported alleged abuse to authorities.” from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “Justin Herrman said he called to report it and Derby police officers came to the home. But he said his mother persuaded him to tell the police that he lied. He said the officers lectured him about lying and left.” also from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “In the Christmas Eve conversation, Valerie Herrman told her former sister-in-law “that she beat Adam once with a belt” and that Valerie had gone into her room and cried about it, remorseful. … Bush said Valerie Herrman told her that that after she used the belt, someone at Adam’s school saw bruises, and authorities were called to investigate.” also from Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused
• “At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail.” from Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy
• “Around 1996, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt, and his psychological counselor saw bruises and called police. … Adam went to the Wichita Children’s Home for two days, then came home, she said. … Doug Herrman said: “I don’t think they felt he was in any danger. They just told us we couldn’t discipline him with a belt.” also from Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy

Within the past 24 hours, articles such as these have come out, I’d advise readers go through all three:

• Police & SRS Investigations Cleared Herrmans Of Abuse
• Investigators Found No Abuse at Missing Boy’s Home
• Missing Kan. boy was once briefly in state custody

The first article includes:

Since the news of Adam’s disappearance several weeks ago, Ponce says the agency is now involved in a full-scale review and investigation of both Adam’s and the Herrman’s history with SRS. Ponce says that includes a review of how the Herrman’s were able to continue receiving state subsidies for Adam’s adoption years after he vanished.

The third article, we also find details of the state subsidies:

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services confirmed Thursday that the Herrmans continued to receive adoption subsidy payments for Adam after he was missing, but the agency could not immediately determine how much. The department said it was researching the case.

Such subsidies generally are given in situations where the children are difficult to place or in cases in which several siblings are adopted by the same family, she said.

The Herrmans adopted Adam and two of his younger siblings, family members have said.

Families receiving adoption subsidies are required to file a yearly report to verify ongoing legal and financial responsibility for the child, she said.

“If there were a situation in which an individual would knowingly supply false information to the state in order to receive benefits, that is a crime,” Ponce said.

This will be one of the shortest but most important posts I’ve done.

I’ve been meaning to point readers at this post on Harlow’s Monkey,

Schuster Institute’s site on “The Lie We Love.”

Follow the links on the post.

It’s everything I’ve been saying for quite some time now, condensed into something actually readable (and visual.)

I’d pull quotes but there are simply too many.

(map link since removed refer to the Schuster Institute’s page)

Click on the image to reach an interactive map with links to information about countries that have had reports of serious irregularities in international adoptions.

This is the first post in a series I have done around the Adam Herrman/Irvin Groeninger III case. I urge readers to see my Irvin Groeninger III tag for more recent posts in addition to the below. My most recent post will always appear first on the tag.

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We’re back here again.

Yet another adopted kid who was home-schooled who simply disappears and no one bothers to notice, but naturally, the state issued checks kept rolling in.

I’ve been writing for some time now about adopted kids who have dropped out of public view, who no one checks up on, and how subsidies of various forms continue to be issued for these disappeared kids.

For an overview on some of the forms of financial support adopters and the states themselves can receive see my post, Implications of the abandonment laws, adoption financial incentives, and language tangles. As for the other similar cases themselves, (I’ll bring up two from the last year off the top of my head that I’ve blogged about,) go glance over my posts about:

Renee Bowman, (particularly my post Adoption subsidies for frozen corpses, more on the Maryland nightmare.)

This is a summary paragraph I wrote about the case in this blog post:

(Recently, I blogged about the Renee Bowman case in Maryland and the $800 per child per month subsidy Bowman had been receiving, even as two of her three adopted children were dead, frozen in a block of ice. The third was being abused. None were apparently ever enrolled in Maryland public schools and to date, there has been no evidence the kids received any education at all. None the less, the checks kept coming as they were apparently not tied to actually proving the adoptees they were intended for the support of were still even alive.)

Or Judith Leekin, (see my post The horror that is Judith Leekin & the NY child welfare adoption subsidies disaster)

And the NY investigation that began last July that came out of the Leekin mess, Officials Accused of Taking Agency Money in Fake Adoptions:

Two officials of New York City’s child-welfare agency and the fiscal director of a Brooklyn foster care agency have been charged with creating phantom adoptions in a scheme to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars intended for the care of children with disabilities or special needs, federal authorities said on Wednesday.

Now we learn about Adam Herman,

The Kansas parents who failed to report their 11-year-old adopted son missing nearly a decade ago are “people of interest” as authorities search for him nationwide, a sheriff said Monday.

Investigators only recently learned Adam Herrman was missing and are focused on finding him, Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said. Adam was 11 when he disappeared in 1999 from a mobile home park in Towanda where he lived.

Authorities would not say whether they believed Adam, who would now be 21, is alive. “We are working it as if it is a death — but we are not leaning one way or the other,” Murphy said.

Like several other adopted kids who have simply disappeared from view, Adam was being home-schooled at the time:

Adam was homeschooled when he disappeared, Eisenbise said.

Down in this article, Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy, we learn he had once been in public school for a time. Once he left, no one appears to have followed up to see whether or not he was still being educated, let alone whether or not he was still alive:

Because Adam had problems at school, she homeschooled him after they had moved from Derby to Towanda, she said. He attended public school in Towanda for a short time, she said.

“He hated school” but was a “very smart kid,” she said.

“He liked being home with me, and he got a lot of one-on- one attention.”

She said his younger siblings attended public school in Towanda.

Jeff Tuttle/The Wichita Eagle

Once again, we see that the search for Adam was not sparked by any form of adoption related follow up, nor by any form of checking in on him as a condition of his adopters receiving subsidies for him. The investigation was not begun as a result of him clearly no longer receiving any form of education. Nope. The Wichita Eagle is reporting the investigation into Adam’s whereabouts may have been sparked by a tip from his sister, Sister says her tip led to investigation into Adam Herrman’s disappearance.

The adopter’s excuse for not reporting his “disappearance” is equally pathetic:

Valerie Herrman, Adam’s adoptive mother, said Adam ran away in 1999 and never returned.

She and her husband, Doug, say they didn’t report Adam missing because they feared it would lead to him and his younger siblings being taken from them.

See an article and video related to such here, Biological daughter of Adam Herrman’s adoptive parents contacts KSN. Note particularly,

Meanwhile, a former relative, who says she remains close to one of Valerie Herrman’s sisters, says the sister told her that Valerie recently commented, “They can dig up the whole state of Kansas, they’ll never find a body.”

In the midst of all this are claims by relatives that Adam had been abused by his adopters, none-the-less, no investigation was sparked before last November. (see Relatives say missing Butler County boy was abused, and Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy)

Adam Herrman’s adoptive mother Tuesday denied allegations by relatives who say they saw her abuse the boy over the years before he disappeared.

“They make it sound like I tortured him, but I loved him,” Valerie Herrman said in an interview with The Eagle.

She said Adam ran away from their Towanda home nearly 10 years ago when he was 11, after she spanked him with a belt. She was upset but can’t remember why, she said.

Clearly Valerie Herrman understood that hitting Adam with a belt was not ok, as they feared such “spankings” would lead to the removal of the kids:

Herrman said she and her husband, Doug, never reported Adam missing because they feared the spanking would lead authorities to take Adam and his two younger siblings away. They told relatives that Adam, whom the couple had adopted when he was a little over 2, had gone back to state custody.

But such unease clearly never once stood in their way of cashing the checks they were receiving for Adam’s support:

In court documents, they continued to list Adam as a son in 2003, more than four years after he disappeared. If they had not, it would have drawn scrutiny that also could have led to their children being taken away, Doug Herrman said in the interview.

For the same reason, they continued to accept state adoption subsidy payments for Adam until his 18th birthday, Valerie Herrman said. She said she sent back a check she received after his 18th birthday.

“I feel very guilty about stealing that money,” she said tearfully.

“It was $700 a month. I kept hoping he was going to come back, though.”

With special thanks to AdoptedJane for bringing this article to my attention, we learn of other instances where Adam was claimed by the Herrmans:

The adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman of Derby, could face charges, according to Murphy. He said The Eagle reported that the couple continued to claim the child years after he disappeared, first in bankruptcy proceedings filed in 2002, and later in a divorce case filed in 2003. The divorce case was later dropped.

And once again, AdoptedJane finds another gem of an article, Case Raises Questions About Adoption Procedures:

We learned adoptive parents go through an extensive background check. However, once an adoption is finalized, the state is out of the picture.

That all changes if money is involved. Many adoptive families in Kansas receive Medicaid to help them raise a special needs child. Those children with significant medical, emotional or developmental needs.

The state and parents come to an agreement prior to the adoption.

The assistance can be a one-time payment or reoccuring. If it’s the latter, Medicaid requires the parents submit an annual written report to verify the money is still needed.

Their word is Medicaid’s only source. They never go in person to check.

So how does this apply to Adam Herrman? According to family, his adoptive parents received state assistance, possibly thousands of dollars. Right now we don’t know why.

(Emphasis added)

(Back to this article, Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy) The Herrmans have admitted to keeping Adam locked in a bathroom, notably on the “advice of a psychiatrist”:

She denied allegations, from her sister and two biological children that she punched and kicked Adam over the years, beat him with a belt buckle and kept him chained to the bathtub faucet in the home.

She also denied that she withheld food from Adam. Sometimes, she said, he would overeat to the point of getting sick.

She said that at times she kept Adam locked in the bathroom at night under the advice of a psychiatrist after they found two knives under Adam’s pillow when he was about 8, when they lived in Derby.

“He said he was going to kill us,” she said.

They turned around the bathroom doorknob so it could be locked from the outside, she said.

“He slept in the bathtub,” she said, with a sleeping bag, sheet, pillow and blanket. He was locked in only at night, and it was for his and their protection, she said.

“There was no chains, no handcuffs.”

At another point, she said, “The ones who are saying he was mistreated, they weren’t there.”

Asked how long he was kept in the bathroom at night, she said it occurred possibly over a two- to three-month period, although she couldn’t remember exactly how long.

The psuedo-diagnosis comes out, as it does in so many disobedient adoptees cases to a hodgepodge of possibilities and the usual medically unrecognized catch all old standby, so called “attachment disorder”

Psychiatrists said Adam was either bipolar or schizophrenic or suffering from attachment disorder, they said.

See my earlier post, here, for one of the places I’ve written about such quackery:

“Attachment theory/disorder” or “Attachment therapy” is not an official term used in the DSM IV. It is at best a piece of ambiguous language or “unvalidated diagnosis”. From the theory article (see footnote ^[128] for citation):

Attachment disorder is an ambiguous term. It may be used to refer to reactive attachment disorder, the only ‘official’ clinical diagnosis, or the more problematical attachment styles (although none of these are clinical disorders), or within the alternative medicine field, the pseudoscience of attachment therapy as a form of unvalidated diagnosis.

Also see this Wikipedia page for:

The definition of Attachment Therapy is disputed and there is no generally recognized definition. For example, it is not a term found in the American Medical Association’s Physician’s Current Procedural Manual, 2006. It is also not found in Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, fifth edition, edited by Michal J. Lambert, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.

Quack “therapies” based on the notion of “attachment disorder” have a body count. Be sure to see this brief wikipedia entry on Candace Newmaker and Colorado’s and North Carolina’s “Candace’s law” enacted in her memory.

Or more importantly, see A SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS which contains plenty of information and a first-hand account of what the “attachment therapy” craze can mean in practice to adopted minors. Eventually I’ll get around to writing the “attachment quackery” post, for now, just understand that I view “attachment” psuedoscience as being to Bastards what “ex-gay therapy” is to Queers, (which as Wayward Radish has pointed out in comment thread on the above post is no coincidence, as “attachment” gurus have been direct inspiration to at least one of those behind the “gay to straight” movement.)

The relatives however have a different take on the bathroom lock ins:

On Super Bowl Sunday in 1999, the year Adam Herrman went missing but no one reported it, one of his aunts says she saw the 11-year-old chained to a bathtub faucet at his Towanda mobile home.

It looked like he had handcuffs on, said his aunt, Kim Winslow. Winslow, now 48, said it was the last time she saw Adam.

Other close relatives of Adam’s adoptive mother, Valerie Herrman of Derby, say they saw her abuse him over the years and that he was forced to sleep in a bathtub. In at least one instance, a relative reported alleged abuse to authorities.

(Emphasis added)

This final sentence is key. If the abuse was reported, why was there no investigation at the time?

Then you have other missed opportunities for Adam to have gotten help, such as this (from the same article):

Justin Herrman, 29, who is the biological son of Valerie and Doug Herrman, said he never saw his father abuse Adam.

“He’s actually stopped it many times,” said Justin Herrman, who was about 7 years older than Adam.

Over the years, at different homes around the Wichita area, his mother “would start hitting him or beating him with a belt,” Justin said.

His father “would stop her and say, ‘That’s enough, Valerie,’ ” he said.

One time, Justin Herrman said, his mother threw Adam, then around 4 or 5, against a wall and pulled his hair, and Justin stepped in to stop it.

Justin Herrman said he called to report it and Derby police officers came to the home. But he said his mother persuaded him to tell the police that he lied. He said the officers lectured him about lying and left.

His mother started locking Adam in the bathroom, and the boy slept in the bathtub, Justin Herrman said.

“She would just tell us he was threatening us,” and that he had mental problems and couldn’t be trusted, Justin Herrman said of his mother.

and this:

In the Christmas Eve conversation, Valerie Herrman told her former sister-in-law “that she beat Adam once with a belt” and that Valerie had gone into her room and cried about it, remorseful.

Bush said Valerie Herrman told her that that after she used the belt, someone at Adam’s school saw bruises, and authorities were called to investigate.

So, what came of that “investigation”?

Oh silly me, he disappeared off into homeschooling and no one bothered to check up on him again.

Clearly there were warning signs and opportunities to get him out of that house, but time and again, the ball was apparently dropped.

Sure, it makes national headlines now, years later when it may well be far too late, but the real question remains why did no one deal with such at the time?

The Adoptive mother denies she abused missing boy article contains a basic profile of Adam and his adopters, and makes mention of them having adopted two of his younger siblings. There is also this little detail:

At one point when Adam was younger, around 1990 or 1991, the Herrmans said they lost their foster care license after an investigation, which they declined to discuss in detail. They said authorities removed one of Adam’s younger sisters, then about 2, but said she was not removed because of child abuse.

Then we find more of the belt story, and yet another missed opportunity in the form of yet another entanglement with authorities, one that led to Adam being removed from the Herrmans… for all of TWO DAYS:

Around 1996, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt, and his psychological counselor saw bruises and called police. “That’s her job. I don’t hold that against anybody,” she said.

“I hated myself for it,” she said of the spanking. She said she had been spanked with a belt as a child and vowed she would not do that to her children.

Adam went to the Wichita Children’s Home for two days, then came home, she said.

Doug Herrman said: “I don’t think they felt he was in any danger. They just told us we couldn’t discipline him with a belt.”

Valerie Herrman said: “After that, I was too scared to spank him. He hardly ever got a spanking after that.

Despite her “hardly ever,” she admits to having hit him with a belt AGAIN the day he supposedly “ran away”:

During the first week of May 1999, possibly on the weekend, she said, she spanked Adam with a belt one afternoon.

“He got mad, and he said he’s going to run away,” Doug Herrman said. “He ran out the front door.”

Apparently such physical abuse never got in the way of the Herrman’s alleged spiritual concern for Adam:

“We never stopped praying for him.

But their supposed concern for him never extended far enough into the real world as to so much as report him missing.

Meanwhile, states fail to investigate, and continue to issue checks to adopters without ever so much as checking to see that the kids they money is supposedly for are even still processing oxygen much less present.

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Video from an interview with Adam’s biological father can be found here.

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Anyone with information about Adam Herrman is asked to call the Butler County Sheriff’s Office at 316-322-4398. Callers should select option 8 on the recording, then ask to speak with the investigator on duty.

See a full gallery of pictures on the Wichita Eagle site.

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UPDATE, January 9th

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Be sure to see my second post Irvin Groeninger III / Adam Herrman- in previous investigations, the State had cleared the Herrmans

Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Elizabeth Norcross Miller, of Newburgh, exults as she gets her birth certificate today at the Maine Office of Data, Research and Vital Statistics in Augusta. Under a new Maine law, adult adoptees can obtain a copy of their original birth certificate for the first time since 1953.

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Sometimes people wonder why Bastard activists do the work we do.

Maine, having restored records access to adult adoptees and thereby finally restored a basic right to its adoptees, well what is unfolding there right now is part of the answer to that question.

Open records makes such a concrete difference in the lives of those so fortunate as to have that right restored to them. Restored access is about human rights, about dignity, and about working towards treating adopted people equitably.

Many of the quotes in articles focus upon reunion or medical histories, but that is not what open records are at their core. Opening records merely makes the State stop impounding the records for adoptees that non-adopted people already have access to.

Any potential reunions or gained access to medical information come as a secondary step thereafter.

When the State stops treating adopted people differently (as a class of people,) we simply regain what other people already have, our unimpeded Constitutionally protected right to free association. We can then ask whether our relatives want a relationship with us, or whether or not they would care to share our familial medical history with us, but they are under no obligation to do either.

Open records are about the restoration of adoptees’ rights (human and civil).

Reunion is about any relationships and information shared that may come thereafter.

The two get conflated in articles or in sound-bytes, but they are inherently sequential.

(Yes state mandated reunion registries etc. attempt to bypass or short circuit that sequence. They attempt to give relationship without restored rights, that is why they, like any other state offered breadcrumbs should ultimately be rejected by anyone serious about Bastard equality. Privately set up reunion registries etc. have been a stop gap measure, based upon our right to freedom of association and sometimes desperate need for information, medical or otherwise, but they form an interpersonal relationship based band-aid, not a restoration of Bastard human rights.)

That said, the sequential decisions can play out very quickly. Once records access has been restored, yes, some people jump right into attempting to find their relations, after all, in some cases they’ve waited their whole lives for such. Every day that passes is another day that relatives may die. No one wants to miss such a long awaited opportunity by days or hours.

Let’s spell it out though, what does the records access restoration (such as Maine’s, that still does not treat adopteed people with full equity and uses records access as an occasion to set up yet a new state bureaucracy in the form of a currently non-binding “contact preference form”) really mean to adult adoptees who opt to utilize it?

After in many cases a lifetime’s worth of waiting, Maine adult adoptees:

• are finally able to access their own original birth certificates, paperwork pertaining to themselves that the state began essentially impounding and locking away from Maine adoptees 56 years ago
• they are finally are able to determine that their birthdate is their birthdate, or what their actual birthdate might be. This will be the first time in some adoptees’ lives that they’ve ever been able to verify how old they really are
• they are finally able to determine where they were born
• in some cases they are finally able to determine whether or not they had other siblings at the time of their birth
• they are finally able to gain access to the documentation of any name they might have been given at birth
• they now have the option, should they wish to, to attempt to reconnect with family members. For some adopted people simply gaining their authentic paperwork may be an end unto itself, but for others, they have spent their lives fighting the clock, hoping to gain access to their information and perhaps find relatives before they are lost to them forever. Restoration of access means the State has after decades, finally gotten out of the way when it comes to exercising our constitutionally protected right to freedom of association.
• and most importantly, they are closer to being treated just like any other person born in Maine than they have been at any point in the last 56 years.

Truth is better than lies.

For those who have been forced to live behind walls of lies for perhaps their entire lives, the moment when our truths are finally revealed to us is overwhelming.

There are no words for that moment. Having not experienced it myself, I won’t even attempt to characterize it. It is perhaps best summed up by the tears of people who have spent decades or lifetimes worth of being bastardized by the State finally regaining, or gaining for the first time, just a small portion of their basic human dignity.

I do this work because no one should be denied the most basic information about their own lives, kept in file cabinets and vaults by the State, locked away from the people it most intimately pertains to.

States’ sealed records systems go beyond mere personal degradation to unequal treatment under law. The restoration of access to our own paperwork is a restoration to a basic right other people born in any given locale have the luxury of taking for granted.

What has finally been won in Maine brings adoptees closer to being treated just like anyone else born there.

Maine is now one of six states that either never sealed their records or have restored access since 2000.

For Maine news and updates, first go see “Original Birth Certificates for Maine”, or OBC for ME they folks behind the law. They have plenty of information, including the link to the official state application form and the details of what will also be required when submitting a records request.

Next, go read some of the news links off Marley’s post, MAINE UPDATE: A COLLECTION OF RECENT NEWS STORIES ON THE RESTORATION OF ADOPTEE RIGHTS IN MAINE and her analysis of the lousy editorial built upon false frames in the Portland Press Herald back on December 30th MAINE: RECORDS OPENED, GRINCH CRINGES!

Then go read Lorraine’s post on her “Fristmother Forum,” Now for more good news from Maine.

Already, for some of those from Maine who have long sought them, there have been family reunions since regaining their original birth certificates this past week.

I’ll leave readers with several bits from this article, Maine adoptees get access to birth records, (January 2)

About 20 men and women, each raised by parents who adopted them, lined up outside a state office building this morning to get a first look at their original birth certificates.

Some choked back tears as they learned the names of their birth mothers, the places where they were born and, in some cases, the fact that they have siblings they’ve never met

and

The first wave of people waited in the cold outside the Maine Office of Data, Research and Vital Statistics until it opened at 8 a.m. The group included men and women from as far as Florida and California.

and from this (not so great, reunion focused) article, Maine adoptees allowed access to birth records, from today (January 6)

About 50 ended up picking up theirs on Friday, Beavers said, adding the scene of the adoptees and supporters lined up before the office opened Friday morning was a “mob.”

“It was unbelievable,” she said.

If you are searching for general information about the case and the verdict please see my earlier overview post entitled No, no justice for Dmitry.

***

Перевести на русский

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This post is an update to an ongoing series of posts I have made about the death of Dmitry Yakolev/Chase Harrison and the agency that placed him, European Adoption Consultants (EAC). EAC is one of the largest international adoption agencies in the world and the top agency in Russia (and had been in Guatemala.)

Russian law requires officials be kept up to date by the placing agencies of the disposition of the children placed through them with regular updates for the first three years. In the aftermath of Dmitry’s death, the Russian Federation Ministry of Education and Science opened an investigation into EAC for their apparent failure to report his death immediately.

Dmitry is the the second Russian child EAC had placed who died apparently as a result of actions by their adopters. Logan Higgenbotham was killed by her adoptive mother in 1988. You can read my previous posts about Dmitry and EAC by clicking here (read from bottom to top, as entries are in reverse chronological order.)

***

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article detailing some of the anger in aftermath of the Miles Harrison acquittal, Russian Furor Over U.S. Adoptions Follows American’s Acquittal in Boy’s Death, (dated Jan. 3rd.)

Last Tuesday (December 30th) the Russians began their own investigation:

On Tuesday, Russian federal prosecutors opened an investigation into the boy’s death, and the authorities have called to restrict or end the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

“When we give our children to the West and they die, for some reason the West always tells us it was just an accident,” Tatyana Yakovleva, the first deputy chief of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, told reporters. “It’s hard to believe.”

By which they speak to the much larger pattern of Russian adoptees’ deaths here in the states due to the actions of those who adopted them. (See Marley’s chronicling of the cases in her blog post CASES: FOREVER FAMILY, FOREVER DEAD.)

Naturally, Mile’s Harrison’s lawyer, Peter Greenspun is still playing publicist, pretending Dmitry’s Russian origins and citizenship were irrelevant:

Mr. Harrison’s lawyer, Peter D. Greenspun, said Russian prosecutors had no jurisdiction in the case. He said that he understood Russia’s interest in the case, but that calling to restrict adoption by Americans “is really politicizing the case unnecessarily.”

“This was a tragic accident which occurred without regard to the country of birth,” he said. “It could have been Guatemala, it could have been Kansas, it could have been South Africa.”

What Greenspun misses or glosses over of course, is that Dmitry’s death was an international incident from the moment it occurred, and is part of a much broader pattern of deaths of Russian adoptees here in the states.

His latter comment is of course laughable,

• Guatemala closed to wanna-be-adopters last May in the midst of allegations of adoptions fueled by kidnappings, outright child buying etc (see my earlier posts News- Guatemala halts foreign adoptions, News- U.S. Adoptions Fueled by Guatemalan Kidnappings, and News- Yet more in the Guatemala saga as but a few examples of my writings in relation to the Guatemalan situation)
• adoption from Kansas would be a domestic adoption (Greenspun is comparing apples to oranges,)
• and adoptions from South Africa are simply not comparable to adoptions from Russia. (According to the US State Department there were a whopping total of 7 US adoptions from South Africa in 2008, Russia on the other hand sent 1857 kids into US adoptions in the same period, as but one of many differences.)

The Russians, of course aren’t buying excuses nor spin attempts for one moment:

Russian officials saw it otherwise. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, “Serious doubts arise as to the legitimacy of the practice of transferring our children for adoption to a country where their rights, primarily the right to life, turn out to be unprotected.”

“In the United States,” it continued, “punishment is absent for those guilty of such tragedies on, apparently, the sole ground that they are ‘full-fledged’ citizens, whereas their adoptees are not.”

Whether or not Dmitry’s adopted status was a factor in the acquittal of Miles Harrison, there remains a core truth to the lack of adoptee rights.

Dmitry was brought to Virginia, a state where adoptees are not given equal treatment under law as non-adopted people.

Virginia is a sealed (adoption) records state.

Adoptees from Virginia do not enjoy the same right to unimpeded access to their original unaltered birth certificate that non-adopted citizens enjoy. Instead, Virginia adoptees are forced by the State into a separate system, (link opens a PDF) that grants them only the right to “non-identifying background information about themselves and their birth family from their finalized adoption record.” Requests to gain full access to unaltered documents are locked away behind gatekeeping mechanisms.

While Virginia adoptees have the right to apply for their unaltered information (should they even be aware that they are adoptees) they have no inherent right under the State’s laws to the State held information that non-adopteed Virginians can readily access about themselves.

Simply put, Virginia adoptees do not enjoy the same rights that non-adopted Virginians do.

Internal to Russia, Speaker Gryzlov has decryed the American adoptions in the rhetoric of nationalist, and supremacist language, not understanding that to the American adopters’ persepctive it’s not a matter of Russian adoptees as some mythical form of “superior stock” so much as it is many American adopters’ relentless quest to get a hold of white adoptees.

To some American couples it makes no difference where the kid is from, so long as they can pass for white, or more importantly, pass as the child off as “their own.”

At a public hearing in the lower house of Parliament, Speaker Boris Gryzlov declared himself “indignant.” Foreigners want Russian children, he said, because they are “genetically smarter and healthier.”

This sentence in particular from the NYT article greatly oversimplifies the Russian grievance:

News of the judge’s ruling revived public outrage that was provoked in 2005 by the deaths of two Russian-born children after severe abuse at the hands of adoptive parents in North Carolina and Maryland. Both cases resulted in convictions.

This is (as the rest of the article makes clear) not a matter of two such cases, and while in those two there were convictions, many other cases have resulted in sentences of less than ten years. See Marley’s blog post, THE RUSSIAN ADOPTED DEAD: A REVIEW OF KILLERS AND SENTENCES. The tragic cases are numerous, and the sentences often light.

The article does go on to quote Alina Levitskaya of the (Russian) Ministry of Education and Science, who makes it clear, the number is certainly higher than the mere two cases the article focuses upon:

Fourteen adopted children have died of abuse in the United States since 1996

In addition to those Russian kids who have died due to the actions of their adopters, there have also been other examples where the kids have survived. Masha, who was adopted by a divorced, father ,paedophile, Matthew Mancuso, as a sexual toy, photographed, starved, and abused over the course of years being perhaps the highest profile of them.

Masha gets a single sentence mention in the NYT piece, though not by name.

In addition, that year a Pennsylvania man was convicted of sexually abusing a girl he had adopted from Russia and of posting pornographic photographs of her on the Internet.

I have only written about Masha twice to date, but Marley has written ba number of posts laying out a fair amount of information.

My post Masha II gives the roughest outline of some of what all she has endured (and to the best of my knowledge, continues to endure.)

Her story alone is enough to give anyone pause concerning these adoptions, as from the pathetic “home study” forward it was clear something had gone terribly wrong.

While Greenspun and the U.S. continue to dismiss the far reaching implications of the Harrison case, the Russians patience is running out. That which is treated as all but irrelevant here in the U.S. to almost all but wanna-be-adopters trying to extract kids from Russia before any rule changes can occur, is household dinner table discussion fodder in Russia.

No doubt the “over-reaction!” and “unnecessarily politicized!” whining will only increase should the Russians decide to make changes to their (already previously tightened) adoption policy.

LD 1084, An Act To Provide Adult Adoptees Access to Their Original Birth Certificates took effect today in Maine.

In 1953 Maine took away adopted adults’ access to their own state held records, locking them away and forcing Adoptees to gain a court order before being granted access to their own information.

Now after 56 long years, the most basic human right, that to one’s own authentic identity, has at long last been restored.

Those 56 years represent an ugly chapter in the state’s history, a time when adopted people had their original identities confiscated by the state and withheld from them.

Some of those adopted as children lived and died in the space of those decades never knowing the truth about themselves. They were never granted the State’s permission to access the most fundamental aspects of their own lives, their authentic origins, the paperwork listing their original birthdate, in some cases, perhaps even the original names they were given.

Today, Maine has taken an important step forward, restoring access to these state impounded documents. Upon age 18, adopted people will once again have access to their own most personal information, putting an end to an era of secrets and lies and what had amounted to state held secret dossiers on those who had been adopted.

Original Birth Certificates for Maine, or OBC for ME has further information, including the link to the official state application form and the details of what will also be required when submitting a records request.

They have a lot to be proud of today. Tomorrow January 2, a set of opening day activities are planned.

Maine now joins the proud ranks of the five other states that have either never taken away or have since restored access to their adult adoptees since 2000 (Oregon having been the first to restore access.)

Bastard Nation‘s map of full access states; Alaska and Kansas never sealed their records, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and now Maine have restored after an intervening period of having our most basic identity rights stripped away from us:

These are the few states that treat adult adoptees who were born there as equal citizens.

That said, even in some states that have reopened, the State is still clearly uncomfortable with with the notion of adult adoptees as being able to conduct their own affairs free of the government cast as a third party to our interpersonal relationships.

Apparently we are not to be trusted to act as other citizens, assumed to simply be able to associate freely and control our own intimate associations free from the state maintaining files pertaining to our relationships.

Sadly, Maine, like Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire has added a (fortunately toothless) “contract preference form,” by which the state is to collect parents “contact preferences” and then hold such paperwork to pass along to adult adoptees upon their submitted records request.

We as adopted citizens must be free to conduct our most intimate interpersonal affairs, deciding whether or not to contact our own blood relations free from government’s insistence upon information collection “on our behalf” or “for the protection of those involved” and essentially the government insisting upon being a party to our interpersonal relationships process.

It’s simply none of the State’s business.

Today at least, such “preference” forms have no enforcement power behind them, but they set a terrible precedent, AND maintain the role of the state in how we conduct our intimate associations, insisting our private lives and associations or lack thereof ARE quite literally, the business of the State.

No other class of citizen has to endure such indignities.

If you are not an adoptee, the state does not keep track of whether or not your parents or other blood relations want to see you or not. Only adoptees are subjected to such State intrusiveness.

It’s insulting, and maintains the State’s ability to portray adopted individuals as a form of ‘forever children,’ constantly in need of the watchful eye of the State, allegedly forever unable to achieve full self determination.

All of which has it’s basis in the (adoption industry propagated) mythologies that many if not all adopted people could become stalkers or harrassers at the drop of a hat, that parents must be protected from them, and that most parents would not welcome the presence of their long lost children in their lives.

None of which are true.

The facts remain, not only are most adopted people NOT stalkers or harassers, but many parents actively wish to be found. Indeed, many were promised by agencies that when their children turned 18 they would have their paperwork released to them and that their children would come find them.

In those exceptional, rare circumstances in which individuals are unable to respect a “no” or “not interested,” the violators should be treated as any other adult would be. Restraining orders and such can be issued based upon a demonstrated pattern of misbehavior.

Any attempt to instead place any form of pre-emptive restraint upon adoptees as a class, interferes with our constitutional right to free association.

Fortunately Maine does not include an actual form of pre-emptive restraint, for now at least, but it sets up the systems by which such could become possible at a later date.

The Maine law does however, continue in the fine tradition of infantalizing adopted adults, even as the concrete effect of such is to finally restore adult adoptee rights.

Sadly, it is even less kind to our parents.

Along with the contact preference form, the state has coupled the act of affirming that they wish to restore contact (or even that they do not prefer contact, at least that was their feeling at the time the form was filled out) with their adopted children with the parents’ own medical histories, something that adopted adults have no legal right to.

While adopted people may contact our blood relations and REQUEST their familial medical history, there is no legal requirement that our parents divulge their own personal medical information. They may do so at their own choosing, but they cannot be required to do so.

The contact preference clause is spelled out thusly in the law:

3. Contact preference form. The state registrar shall develop a contact preference form on which a birth parent may state a preference regarding contact by an adoptee. The form must contain the following statements from which the birth parent may choose only one.

A. “I would like to be contacted. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

B. “I would prefer to be contacted only through an intermediary. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

C. “Do not contact me. I may change this preference by filling out another contact preference form. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

While contact preference forms and medical histories are not required as a precondition to records release to the adult adoptee, for a parent to affirm that they wish contact, the state has essentially coupled a medical history form to the contact preference form unnecessarily.

Created in the name of protecting alleged “privacy”/confidentiality, this new set of state held files actually is quite the opposite, and becomes yet another layer of the State injecting itself into our interpersonal affairs.

Personal medical information is best shared between the individuals directly affected, not between our parents and the state, who will then file and hold such, releasing it to adult adoptees if they submit a records request.

The State needs to stop treating adopted adults differently.

What we want is equitable treatment, to be treated just like anyone else, no preference forms held by the State, none of this unnecessary nonsense. We want the ability to conduct our own interpersonal affairs without the State injecting itself as a third party into our relationships, collecting and holding information pertaining to our families.

The entire section of the law quoted above creates another NEW layer of state held files pertaining to our lives, our relations, and our interpersonal relationships. More bureaucracy and meddling that “normal” (i.e. non-adopted) citizens do not have to endure.

Just because such “preferences” are not enforced today does not necessarily mean they will not be at some future date.

States need to simply restore what they took from us, records access. Period. Not utilize such legislation as an excuse to go build NEW sets of files pertaining to adopted people and their families.

Legally speaking the personal “preferences” of our parents do not factor in. Records access restoration is a matter between adoptees and the state, and also between parents and the state.

By putting parents preferences in files for adult adoptees, the state is falsely pitting the desires of parents AGAINST their own children. This is built on the false notion of adoption as a “triad,” (parents, adoptees, and adopters.)

The reality is our records are not sealed upon relinquishment.

And despite all claims of “privacy, often raised by industry or those with what certainly appear to be dirty hands, such as the Illinois Catholic Conference (who have admitted in Illinois, that opening records would likely produce lawsuits against them, and that information contained in original birth certificates could be false) never once has a single document actually promising “privacy” to parents ever surfaced. Even if such ever should, there was no force of law behind such supposed promises. Further, parents were often promised the precise opposite as part of the process of getting them to sign away their kids, they were assured that such wasn’t forever, the kid would come find them when they turned 18.

Records access is not a matter between adoptees and their parents. Parents do not hold the power restore records access to their children.

Records are sealed upon our adoptions.

Records restoration is a matter between adoptees and the State. Similarly, parents are also battling the state to gain records access as well. The State confiscated the records, and the only place that we can turn for restoration is the State.

There is no “adoption triad.”

Adoption is built instead, upon an adoption pentagon:

1. parents
2. adoptees
3. agencies/lawyers/intermediaries/lobbyists/industry/etc
4. the State
5. adopters

It should be noted, some parties to adoption have more power and control than others.

While it serves the State’s interests to have adoptees and parents at one another’s throats in some false game of “conflicting interests” the bottom line is, our genuine interests are not at odds.

The “preferences” of those who were not parties to our records being closed cannot be used by the state as something to hide behind in the process of re-opening them (or not.) Our parents were legally out of the picture at the point in time when our records were closed.

It’s past time the State begins to trust adult adoptees to conduct our own lives. No more state held files, no intermediaries (unless directly personally chosen by the individuals involved, preferably non-commercial/non-contracted) etc.

We’re grown ups, it’s time for the State to start treating us as such.

In the end, it’s a damn good day for Maine adoptees.

The real bottom line here is that people who have waited their entire lives for the most personal and basic of information about themselves have finally had their civil and human right to access their own information restored to them.

It’s just a shame that states insist upon insulting adoptees and their families in the process and building yet new bureaucracies upon false notions that we still are unable to conduct our own lives without the State butting in.

Finally be sure to see both Marley’s piece on Bastardette- MAINE: RECORDS OPENED, GRINCH CRINGES! and Robin’s piece on Motherhood Deleted- New Year, Same Old Myths both about Maine.

By way of follow up to my earlier post in the wake of the election, Sewing the scarlet “b”- California’s newest bastards, and other abysmal anti-Queer anti-child bastardization, the ACLU has taken Arkansas’ Act 1 to court.

Back on November 4th, 57 percent of the state’s voters had approved the “Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act.” It was scheduled to go into effect tomorrow, Jan. 1st.

See this AP article, ACLU of Arkansas sues over adoption restrictions

“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.

and

The families claim that the act’s language was misleading to voters and that it violates their constitutional rights. The lawsuit was filed against the state of Arkansas, the attorney general, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and its director, and the Child Welfare Agency Review Board and its chairman.

and

Rita Sklar, ACLU Arkansas’ executive director, said the group wanted to sue before the law takes effect Thursday. Department of Human Services officials have said they do not expect to have to remove any foster children from their homes. The state had already barred cohabiting unmarried couples from becoming foster parents and was in the process of reversing that policy when voters approved the new ban.

The law does not affect any adoptions that were finalized before it takes effect.

also note

The ACLU’s suit notes that the council had pushed for the new law as part of a campaign to blunt a so-called “gay agenda,” but the restriction affects heterosexual and gay couples equally.

Also see this KARK 4 piece, ACLU Taking Act One to Court

Just days before it’s scheduled to take effect, the ACLU files a lawsuit to strike down initiated act 1.

That act would ban unmarried couples who live together from adopting or fostering children.

The ACLU says it doesn’t matter if you’re single, married, gay, straight or co-habiting, every prospective foster or adoptive parent should be screened on a case by case basis.

I strongly encourage readers to read through this article in particular, Ark. adoption ban could start national trend, activists fear, which not only provides an overview of the history and tactics of the Arkansas campaign as well as the previous Arkansas legislative history, but it also explains how Arkansas could be just the beginning.

Note particularly,

(keeping in mind Rep. Cathy Webb is Arkansas’ first and only openly gay lawmaker who opposed Act 1, and Jerry Cox is president of the Arkansas Family Council the organization that created Act 1.)

Webb said the state’s network of gay organizations went to national organizations, but couldn’t get any funding.

“Everything went to California, with Florida second behind,” she said. “We had enough money to run ads, but not enough to fund a grassroots organization.”

Cox had the same problem, but took a different approach.

“Their campaign was strictly through the churches,” Webb said. “The emails they sent out from the churches talked only about this as a gay thing.”

and

In a Nov. 26 article in Time magazine, Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Boston-based Family Equality Council, said what happened in Arkansas could be the beginning of a blueprint for future state ballot measures to ban gay adoption.

According to Chrisler, her group expects legislative bans on gay adoption to come up soon in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee as part of a movement similar to the numerous state-by-state measures that banned gay marriage in 2004.

I’m not going to write a great deal about the details of the crimes Mozes is accused of, instead I’d prefer to point readers at this Naples Daily News piece that pretty well serves as a backgrounder, Miami police nab ‘Most Wanted’ suspect who was released in Collier.

Also be sure to also see the earlier story from back on December 26th, One of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ may have slipped through Collier’s legal system, as it goes into some detail about how he slipped away the first two times.

Here’s an MSNBC piece on the arrest as well, Montecito man arrested in Florida on warrant for adoption scam.

Readers will also want to go explore some of the older news footage off Dawn Delorenzo’s YouTube channel. (The Delorenzos have been quoted repeatedly in relation to the the Mozes case, becoming essentially poster “children” of the scammed.)

Now all that said, my take on these events is really two-fold.

You’ve got Mozes himself, living large, apparently making off with the cash, and accused of pulling all the usual scams so common in adoption, getting potential adoptive couples to plunk down the big bucks based on photos of kids on a website, only to have the adoptions magically “fall through” at the last moment. The usual excuses are given, a parent deciding not to cede custody, a “mistake at the orphanage,” whatever.

Wanna-be-adopters spent many months being strung along, all the while Mozes is accused of extracting more and more cash. Or worse, going so far as to set the marks (the wanna-bes) up with *A* kid in another country for a few days before suddenly the ‘adoption’ again, magically “falls through.”

Who are these kids? Where do they come from? More to the point how much are their real parents or owners being paid for such services? Who the hell knows. That end of things rarely gets a thorough investigation. The adoption scam ‘shows’ in other countries tend to be inexpensive productions, providing kid-props for wanna-be tourism based on pipe dreams and American dollars.

All that matters is that the presence of a kid, ANY kid in the end serves to string the wanna-bes along and is the flesh and blood crowbar that pries out more money still.

Sure, Mozes if guilty, is human scum, preying on the hopes, dreams, and pocketbooks of couples often desperate for a child, but he’s one of MANY.

Mozes is far from unique, and certainly not imaginative, those familiar with adoption scams have heard it all before. He’s simply a par for the course adoption confidence man.

All he did was what many before him have done, and I’m guessing he’s not exactly likely to be the last.

Then you’ve got the wanna-be-adopters (or WBAs.) Many of them fell in love with a picture on a website and the IDEA of a certain child that was marketed to them, and decided that after plunking down some money that these pixels on a screen now somehow equated to “their child.”

The only act of “adopting” they got in the end was having “adopted” a photograph for a time. Mozes was apparently more than happy to let multiple families “adopt” the same photograph, and collect multiple streams of income from that single picture up on a webpage. Again, nothing new here. This is more common than most wanna-bes could ever imagine.

Look through the videos in Delorenzo’s collection. You’ll find a trove of wanna-bes’ wishful thinking.

WBAs insisting that they personally had “lost three children.” By doing so, they co-opt the same sorts of descriptive terminology/language that womyn who have for example, gone through miscarriages use to describe their experiences. The wanna-bes having done nothing more than “invested” and then watched their desired outcome turn to mere mist before their eyes. The latter being a womyn whose pregnancy did not come to full term. The wanna-bes are fully in the realm of throwing money down the toilet and wishes, the miscarrying womyn on the other hand, is fully in the realm of biologically based reality.

The bottom line remains these often internet-based phantasms of children are not, and never were “their’ children.

Even wanna-bes who spent time in other countries, perhaps a week or more with a child (of undetermined origins) around a hotel, still insist that this was “their child” despite all legal realities to the contrary. Regardless of how much money they gave to Mozes these are not only are not their children, they never were. Mourning these failed adoption attempts as having lost “their children” is disingenuous. What they actually lost was their money, their time, their misplaced trust, their aspirations, their wasted efforts and their desperately desired outcome.

Mozes may well have scammed them out of many things, but not one of these wanna-be couples has been scammed out of “their” child.

More to the point, Mozes wasn’t even all that inventive. In today’s climate, such tactics are not aberrations. Even when wanna-bes have been warned about such tactics both their desires and their self image of “such could never happen to ME, I’M too smart to get suckered in like that!” tend to override their critical thinking skills.

Let’s face it, Mozes by all accounts did his the vast majority of his dirty work via the internet and the telephone. These were couples sending thousands of dollars to a man many of them had never even met.

Many of them were deep in the throes of their own failed reproductive sagas, having been through courses of attempted pregnancy, miscarriages, IVF treatments, adoption attempts, etc. On the one hand, some were no doubt ripe for the picking, on the other though, clearly basic street smarts are something that seem to go out the window when it comes to the frenzy of child desperation.

It’s remarkable how their internal bullshit detectors (if they ever even had such that is) never seem to go off when ‘someone on the internet’ tells them they need to send money and then all their fondest dreams can come true.

Worse, Mozes was offering to “put kids on hold” for couples after essentially a down payment. Examining adoption law in Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Russia, nowhere is there any provision for putting kids “on hold.” But these wanna-bes weren’t carefully examining the legal realities of adoption law in the country their phantasm potentials were allegedly coming from and how Mozes could make such outlandish promises. Instead, they viewed themselves as “investing in their families’ future” one payment at a time, assuming that this was the way such adoptions were done. Perhaps some of them were even happy to have stumbled across Mozes’ website, as unlike other agencies, for a payment, he was promising a kid would be held just for them.

The warning signs were absolutely there, but the vast majority of wanna-bes do not approach adoption (and international adoption) with an eye to the legal realities (and international law,) they approach it with visions of little white cribs and a relentless pursuit of a mythical happy-outcome-land filled with adorable tiny clothes all in pink or blue. Often the primary form their relentless pursuit takes is that of opening the proverbial checkbook.

I suppose when people feel they can just buy a kid the way they buy a washer from Sears over the net, on lay-away, with spread out payments, then none of us should be the least bit surprised when people like Mozes step right up to go build websites catering to precisely that market demand.

Sadly, a perfect symbiosis has formed between the desperate infertile and those who view their desperation as an opportunity to expand their personal fortunes.

Which is not to say I in any way think Mozes himself was all that bright a bulb either, I mean come on, speeding, along Route 75 in south Florida while on the lam…?

Earth Kitt died today.

It’s a sad sad day.

Loved her for many, many reasons.

But only recently learned of her own childhood and work on behalf of homeless children.

I don’t really have the words, I’d rather listen that voice of hers instead.

Thanks Eartha, for everything.

See her official website here.

And these, as but two of many articles about her passing.

Playbill, Eartha Kitt, Exotic Songstress and Actress, Dies at 81

Eartha Mae Keith was raised in punishing circumstances. Born out of wedlock, she claimed to be the child of a rape; her mother was a part-African-American, part-Cherokee-Native-American sharecropper in South Carolina, her father a white plantation owner of German and Dutch lineage. She was given away by her mother when she was eight, and raised in Harlem. Eartha Kitt believed that Mamie Kitt was her biological mother. Her new family often beat her and she frequently ran away from home. By her teens, she was living on her own.

NYT, Eartha Kitt, a Seducer of Audiences, Dies at 81 (see the video in the sidebarof Eartha at the Cafe Carlyle too.)

For these performances Ms. Kitt likely drew on the hardship of her early life. She was born Eartha Mae Keith in North, S.C., on Jan. 17, 1927, a date she did not know until about 10 years ago, when she challenged students at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., to find her birth certificate, and they did. She was the illegitimate child of a black Cherokee sharecropper mother and a white man about whom Ms. Kitt knew little. She worked in cotton fields and lived with a black family who, she said, abused her because she looked too white. “They called me yella gal,” Ms. Kitt said.

At 8 she was sent to live in Harlem with an aunt, Marnie Kitt, who Ms. Kitt came to believe was really her biological mother. Though she was given piano and dance lessons, a pattern of abuse developed there as well: Ms. Kitt would be beaten, she would run away and then she would return. By her early teenage years she was working in a factory and sleeping in subways and on the roofs of unlocked buildings. (She would later become an advocate, through Unicef, on behalf of homeless children.)

“I’d Rather Be Burned As a Witch (Than Never Be Burned At All).”

(audio clip)

They say that I’m a witch
and that I weave a spell
[laughing] Well…

I’ll use my eyes to invite you
My lips to delight you
And all the charms of the feminine wiles to excite you

They say that I’m a witch
and that I weave a spell
Well I’ll be a son of a —
And a what the —
Well, let me tell you brother
I’d rather be burned as a witch
Than never be burned at all

I’ll use my songs to entice you
With verses to vice you
And all of my bags of tricks to shoes and rice you

They say that I’m a witch
and that I weave a spell
Well I’ll be a son of a —
And a what the —
Well, let me tell you brother
I’d rather be burned as a witch
Than never be burned at all

Do you want a gal who would be a pal,
who would never look at another?
Who’d be good and true and take care of you?
Sorry, you want another!

I’ll use my charms to undo you
My arms to unglue you
And all of the hex of the weaker sex to voodoo you

They say that I’m a witch
and that I weave a spell
Well I’ll be a son of a —
And a what the —
Well, let me tell you brother
I’d rather be burned as a witch
Than never be burned at all

Do you want a love who’s a turtle dove,
who will bring you life’s little joys?
Who is sweet and shy, with a gentle eye?
I’ll take the men not the boys!

I’ll use my eyes to invite you
My lips to delight you
And you never can tell when I’ll use my teeth to bite you

They say that I’m a witch
and that I weave a spell
Well I’ll be a son of a —
And a what the —
Well, let me tell you brother
I’d rather be burned as a witch
Than never be burned at all

The Divaville Lounge on WXDU in Durham will be producing an extended tribute to Eartha on the January 4 program.

Finally, I leave you with an interview in which she talks briefly about her “illegitimacy”/bastardy, along with a copy of her video with Bronski Beat, Cha Cha Heels, which was but one of many aspects of her crossover with and embrace of Queer culture.

If you are searching for general information about the case and the verdict please see my earlier overview post entitled No, no justice for Dmitry.

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Перевести на русский

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This post is an update to an ongoing series of posts I have made about the death of Dmitry Yakolev/Chase Harrison and the agency that placed him, European Adoption Consultants (EAC). EAC is one of the largest international adoption agencies in the world and the top agency in Russia (and had been in Guatemala.)

Russian law requires officials be kept up to date by the placing agencies of the disposition of the children placed through them with regular updates for the first three years. In the aftermath of Dmitry’s death, the Russian Federation Ministry of Education and Science opened an investigation into EAC for their apparent failure to report his death immediately.

Dmitry is the the second Russian child EAC had placed who died apparently as a result of actions by their adopters. Logan Higgenbotham was killed by her adoptive mother in 1988. You can read my previous posts about Dmitry and EAC by clicking here (read from bottom to top, as entries are in reverse chronological order.)

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Very quick small post this evening, I’ll begin by quoting from today’s Fairfax Times article, U.S. State Dept. reacts to Russian outrage in Fairfax County court case.

The U.S. State Department has chimed in, making it clear that while they’re open to discussions, they view this as just another vehicle heat related death incident:

On Dec. 18, Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned Harrison’s acquittal in an official statement.

“We are deeply angered by the verdict of the Fairfax Circuit Court in Virginia,” it stated. “We consider it to be repulsive and unprecedented, even if in this case — unlike in others — it was criminal negligence that led to a tragic outcome, rather than deliberate ill-treatment. The decision of a judge, who did not see the crime in Harrison’s actions and released him without any penalty, goes beyond any legal and moral framework.”

The U.S. State Department replied the same day by stating: “The death of Chase Harrison is a terrible tragedy. Yesterday’s decision by the Fairfax Circuit Court can not change that tragedy. Sadly this has happened to other children and parents and they are regularly warned about the dangers of leaving their children in vehicles. Chase Harrison’s father will have to live with this mistake for the rest of his life. The state brought manslaughter charges against him and prosecuted this case aggressively. The judge decided to acquit based on the facts. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that it would like to discuss practical steps to ease their concerns. We welcome the opportunity to discuss with the ministry measures to prevent tragedies of this kind.”

While the State Department may feel they’ve taken care of such, I hardly think that’s the last we’ll be hearing of it. It sounds as if the U.S. is sorely underestimating the potential Russian response. If anything, I would guess the US State Department blow off sort of response has only deepened the anger.

Prospective adopters on the other hand are nervously watching as this unfolds, concerned about their ability to get a child before conditions change dramatically, see Adoptive Parents Worry After Loudoun Man is Acquitted in Son’s Death and the connected video segment. (Of course, such couples were not demanding a conviction before the trial ended, as a way to ensure that Russian adoptions would continue, as ultimately, they tend to self identify with the Harrisons.)

Couples such as the Shimers, profiled in the segment, feel a sense of entitlement towards the children they are attempting to adopt, they don’t want to see the time, monetary investments, and emotional investments they’ve already committed not result in gaining the child they’ve already picked out.

The full Russian press release can be found here:

PRESS RELEASE

“We are utterly indignant about the court’s verdict and consider it absolutely unjust and inadmissible”, – declared the Director of Department of the Policy Concerning the Youth, Education and Social Protection of Children of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia Alina Levitskaya commenting on the justificatory verdict by the USA court which concerns Miles Harrison, who was charged in adopted child Dima Yakovlev’s murder by accident.

“The justificatory verdict casts doubt on effectiveness and reliability of the protection of adopted children’s rights system in the USA and will result in toughening the requirements to Russian children’s adoption by USA citizens. We must be sure that our children’s rights are entirely protected in this country; and if a tragic incident happens, even because of an action by accident, severe punishment will be inevitable”, – stressed A. Levitskaya.

On account of this case the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation together with the Embassy of Russian Federation in the USA will press for accusatory verdict in compliance with the weight of the committed act, which led to the child’s death.

At present the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia has already prepared the official inquiry to the State Department of the USA for the purpose of strengthening the control over adopted Russian children.