Chapter Eleven
Questions of Accreditation and Money
Alysha,
her nose to the grindstone, continued to find out more about Amrex and its
operations in Russia and the United States.
She learned “umbrellaing” under Beacon House’s accreditation was
ultimately illegal in Russia. Yet
whenever this fact was brought up, it was passed off as trivial — just the way
they do business “over there.”
How did Amrex and Beacon House get away with callously circumventing Russia’s
adoption edicts?
What really gnawed at the Towells was the pernicious $6,000 “orphanage
donation” Brian gave to Tatyana Dmitriyeva in April.
Had it really gone to the orphans as Denise Hubbard had promised
Alysha back in November?
With the number of adoptions Tatyana and Svetlana were handling in Amur that
year, $6,000 per family was a nice hunk of change.
When Alysha ultimately traveled to Amur in January 2002, it was evident that not one red cent of this “orphanage donation” was going to the children in Oleg and Elena’s orphanage.