Unfortunately, the married ones are being affected too. The agencies, lawyers, adoptive couples, and fraudulent birth mothers have no shame in exploiting these children. They will grow up, they will know the truth, they will find out the horror! We have to get the laws in Utah changed! There is no ifs, ands, or buts, about it. It will happen, some way or another. We will never give up. LBBJH!
Father is ready to turn page on Utah adoption horror story
Utah courts • Judge orders adoptive parents to return child
to father, who is ready for new life with daughter.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published: December 3, 2012
07:50AM
Updated: December 3, 2012 12:59PM
Courtesy photo Leah Frei, now 21 months, has lived with her
adoptive parents since birth. Her biological father, who calls her Teleah, is
waging a legal battle to get her back.
A 4th District Court judge says he is “astonished
and deeply troubled” by a Utah adoption agency’s deliberate move to circumvent
the rights of a married man whose daughter was adopted at birth without his
knowledge.
The Provo judge, while noting the birth mother had
deceived her husband, the adoption agency and the prospective parents, has given
the adoptive couple 60 days to give the child back.
In a 48-page ruling, Judge Darold McDade said the
Adoption Center of Choice’s policy of refusing to disclose any information to
Terry Achane once he learned what had happened to his baby is “utterly
indefensible.”
Salt Lake City attorneys Mark and Scott Wiser, the
father/son team that represented Achane, used even stronger language for what
occurred.
“This is a case of human trafficking,” said Mark Wiser.
“Children are being bought and sold. It is one thing what [adoption agencies]
have been doing with unmarried biological fathers. It is in a new area when they
are trying to take a child away from a married father who wants to have his
child.”
Jared and Kristi Frei, the adoptive parents, declined to
comment, as did Kasey Wright, their former attorney, and Larry Jenkins, newly
hired to represent the couple. James Webb, executive director of the Adoption
Center of Choice, based in Orem, did not return a call from The Salt Lake
Tribune. The Tribune attempted to reach Tira Bland, the birth mother who is now
divorced from Achane, but was unsuccessful.
On a blog about the case, where the Freis have
raised more than $20,000 to help with legal bills, they vow to appeal McDade’s
decision, describing the arrival of Achane’s daughter in their lives “a
righteous desire blessed to fruition by God.”
“We have not lost our conviction that we are in
the right!!!!!!” Kristi Frei wrote after McDade’s Nov. 20 ruling dismissed their
adoption petition. “We have only ever wanted to do right by Leah, and have
always felt we have been acting in her best interest to keep her with our family
and raise her as our own. Our hearts have demanded it — there has never been any
question to us that she is OURS!!!”
Achane, 31, still finds the position he is in hard
to believe and just wants the baby girl he has met just twice and calls Teleah,
the name he picked out before her birth, back.
“I am not a very religious person,” he said in an
interview Friday, “but ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ If they prolong it, that is more
time away from my daughter. There are precious moments I can’t get back. ... It
has been a year and a half now. There is no court order saying they have the
right to my child. I just won the case. I want to get my daughter and raise my
daughter.”
Texas marriage • Achane and Bland, both then residents of
Texas, married in February 2009 and learned around late June 2010 that Bland was
expecting their first child. Achane, who is in the U.S. Army, accompanied his
wife to prenatal visits and was there when an ultrasound revealed they were
having a girl. They shared a joint bank account and Achane carried Bland and her
daughter from a previous relationship on his military health insurance, which he
also expected would cover the new baby.
In the fall 2010, Achane accepted a job as a drill
instructor at Fort Jackson in South Carolina and was ordered to report for duty
no later than Feb. 1, 2011.
But the couple began having marital problems that
December and, according to the ruling, Bland was concerned she would end up a
single mom with two children. Bland suggested she either have an abortion or
pursue an adoption. Achane objected to both options.
The couple continued making plans to move to South
Carolina, but their marital troubles continued. At one point they separated to
have a “cooling-off period.” They also sought counseling.
In January, Bland told her husband she wanted to
remain in Texas, where she has family, for their daughter’s birth. Achane was to
return for the birth, after which Bland and their daughter would join him in
South Carolina. He left Texas on Jan. 17, 2011, anticipating what he thought
would be a short separation.
“I had already gotten clearance to come back when
the baby was on the way,” he said.
But about 10 days after Achane left to set up a
new home for his family, Bland decided to proceed with an adoption. She
contacted the Adoption Center of Choice, which in mid-February brought Bland to
Utah to give birth.
Although Achane continued to give Bland money and
make mortgage and utility payments on their Texas home, by that point he was
unable to reach his wife by telephone. He had no idea what was transpiring.
Utah birth • Teleah was born March 1, 2011, more than two
weeks premature, at Mountain View Hospital in Payson.
Two days later, Bland relinquished her parental
rights and the infant was placed with the Freis. At the time, Bland claimed her
husband had abandoned her and was not interested in raising the child, according
to the ruling.
Bland told the Adoption Center of Choice it could
reach her husband in Texas, though she knew he was in South Carolina and thus
would not receive any legal notices sent to his former address. Bland also
apparently withheld Achane’s telephone number from the agency and later claimed
she did not contact him about the birth because her phone wasn’t working.
The adoption agency informed the Freis that the
father did not know his daughter had been placed for adoption in Utah and it was
likely he would contest the placement if he found out. The Freis, the judge
noted in his ruling, “acknowledged this risk but decided they wanted to proceed
forward with the adoptive placement anyway.”
In mid-March, unable to reach his wife, Achane
asked a friend to drive by their Texas home; he was told it appeared vacant.
Achane then contacted Bland’s relatives. He learned that Bland was no longer
pregnant, but their baby “was nowhere in sight.” The relatives did not know what
had become of the child.
Achane feared Bland had, as she threatened,
proceeded with an abortion, or had given the baby to relatives. Achane next
reached out to his wife’s doctors in Texas, hoping to learn whether Bland had
given birth or had an abortion, but they informed him doctor-patient
confidentiality precluded sharing any information with him.
In June 2011, Bland for the first time informed
her husband she had given birth in Utah and placed the child through the
Adoption Center of Choice.
“I was like, ‘Utah? Where is Utah?’ I’d never been
to Utah, she’s never been to Utah,” he said. “Adoption? Who does that? ... I
believe she felt guilty at that point because she just made a call out of the
blue,” said Achane.
That same day, Achane contacted the adoption
agency and requested information about his child, which the agency refused to
give him.
An attorney later contacted Achane, confirmed an
adoption was in process and asked for his consent. Achane refused and told the
attorney he wanted his daughter returned to him.
Instead, the Freis proceeded with the adoption. In
their adoption petition, filed in July 2011, the couple acknowledged Achane was
married to Bland when the child was conceived and born and that he had never
consented to the adoption. They asked that his parental rights be terminated
because he “abandoned the natural mother during her pregnancy” and “had not
developed a substantial relationship” or otherwise taken responsibility for his
daughter.
Achane intervened in the case and in October, more
than a year later, a two-day hearing finally took place.
During that hearing, a representative for the
Adoption Center of Choice testified that it was “standard practice” to not
provide any information when a father — married or not — of a prospective
adoptive child called the agency. Kristi Freis told the court that although they
knew Achane wanted his child, she and her husband felt they had no obligation to
return the baby.
A fit parent? • In his subsequent order, McDade said it
is “undisputed” that Utah law requires consent of a married father before an
adoption can take place.
“The right of a fit, competent parent to raise the
parent’s child without undue government interference is a fundamental liberty
interest that has long been protected by the laws and constitution of this state
of the United States, and is a fundamental public policy of this state,” he
said.
There was no need under law for Achane to “prove
himself” fit to be a parent to his child. Nor did he have any obligation to
comply with statutes directed at unmarried putative fathers, the judge said.
“Just by marrying the woman who may one day become
the mother of his child, a man is deemed to have demonstrated his commitment to
the responsibilities of parenthood,” McDade said.
While the birth mother initially misled the agency
and adoptive parents by claiming Achane had abandoned the baby and had no
interest in raising her, “once Mr. Achane contacted the Adoption Center of
Choice ... to let them know he opposed the adoption and wanted his daughter
back, that should have been the end of this case,” McDade said.
“Likewise, when the attorney for the Adoption
Center of Choice contacted Mr. Achane and confirmed that Mr. Achane would not
consent to the adoptive placement, the very next conversation they should have
had was what arrangements the adoption agency would be making to return Teleah
to him with all due haste,” he said. “That did not happen.”
The Freis also should have cooperated once they
knew there was a legal father who, contrary to the birth mother’s assertions,
had been involved and wanted the child, the judge said. Instead, they
refused.
“At that juncture, the right thing for the Freis
and the Adoption Center of Choice to have done would have been to make
arrangements to return Teleah to Mr. Achane with all due haste,” the judge
said.
McDade found that Achane could not be said to have
consciously abandoned or failed to provide for or develop a relationship with
his child since her whereabouts were unknown to him until months after her birth
and his wife, the Freis and the adoption agency “deliberately thwarted” any
opportunity for him to have a relationship.
The judge set a hearing for Jan. 16 on how to
transition Teleah to her father, though the Freis want any change in custody
stayed while they appeal.
“Much of the pain and anguish in this case could have
been avoided or at least substantially mitigated if the adoption agency had
responded to Mr. Achane’s initial requests for information concerning his
daughter, and [his] request to have her returned to him back in July or August
2011,” McDade said, adding that he hoped the case would “serve as a cautionary
tale and prompt the Adoption Center to change its policies so situations like
this never happen again.”
brooke@sltrib.com
Twitter: Brooke4Trib
A married father’s rights
While unmarried biological fathers must act to preserve
their parental rights and have a limited time to do so, married fathers are
presumed to have a constitutional, fundamental liberty interest in their
children.
A married father “has the exact same parental rights as
the mother from the get-go,” said Salt Lake attorney Scott Wiser, who with his
father represents Terry Achane. “It is the same reason why any other married
parent would not have to worry about filing a paternity petition or jumping
through a series of legal hoops to get their kids back if a third-party like a
neighbor or day-care provider decided not to return their kids.”
Unless his parental rights have been terminated
for cause, the father’s consent to an adoption is required.
In his ruling in the Achane case, 4th District Judge
Darold McDade called the situation painful and heartbreaking while noting
previous Utah Supreme Court rulings that found that prospective adoptive parents
are “legal strangers” who have no rights other than to temporarily care for the
child until custody can be returned to a natural parent and that any bonding
that may have occurred while they had custody is “legally irrelevant.”
— Brooke Adams
© 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune
Father is ready to turn page on Utah adoption horror
story
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
