Chapter Nine
Amrex Draws Blood
Cracks
appeared in the façade.
In July Wendy Stamper told Alysha conflicting information about the second
dossier’s location. As a matter of
fact, nobody knew exactly where the dossier was. Was it in Medina?
Did “the reps” have it? Was it
in Moscow? Amur?
Alysha’s sense of foreboding was in its infancy about Amrex
and BBAS relationship. As the month of July
progressed Alysha learned more of Amrex’s operations in Russia.
She wasn’t getting any help from Denise, so she went over her head.
She was astute enough to realize, after half the summer had past, that
Denise didn’t know what was going on or even how to handle things.
Her suspicion was Denise was merely Amrex’s puppet, parroting
everything that they were telling her to say.
In late
July Alysha asked Wendy about their court date and when they could expect to
travel for Oleg and Elena. She was fed the usual delaying tactic line — the judges were all
on vacation, and hence they could not grant a court date.
Which
was a load. Neither Wendy nor Denise informed Alysha if their appeal in Moscow
was successful. She did not even mention if Amrex’s rep in Moscow, Sasha, who
oversaw Amur and Tatyana Dmitriyeva, had gone to appeal the case at the Moscow
MOE in the first place.
How did one contact Amrex directly if one had never really gotten on the
Internet to learn more?
The only documentation that they had which said “Amrex” was Brian’s visa.
Written on it was “Amrex”, its address, telephone number, URL (adoptionagencies.org,
at that time) and — amazingly — the email address for a “Veronika.”
There
was only one “Veronika” working at Amrex. Alysha now had at least a name
where to directly contact “the Russian reps” to ask direct questions about
the case.
Unfortunately for Alysha, this was the summer Amrex began telling its member
agencies not to have their clients contact them directly; the clients
were the agency’s problem and not Amrex’s. Amrex was pulling away from its own milking cows.
She turned to the Internet to learn more. She found Amrex and its member
agencies easily and attempted to call Beacon House regarding its accreditation.
She reached out to other Amrex clients and found out that it was an
either hit or miss thing — either you loved them or you hated them.
By early
August, with no concrete travel, court date or even news if their case had been
appealed in Moscow, Alysha called Medina and spoke with Wendy Stamper.
The second week of August the Towells received a large package at their home. In this package was not one video and medical referral, but four from an orphanage in Vladivostok.
One pretty year old boy named Alexander caught their attention. He was a
treasure, and was probably the healthiest referral Amrex sent out that year.
They could tell, however, that the other four boys referrals and medicals
were also in Alex’s orphanage and quite possibly in his group.
Although he appeared to be healthy he would not be a substitute for Oleg in their hearts.
There would never be a substitute for Oleg.
Ever.
Verbally, they said they would accept Alexander’s referral, but they never
signed a Petition to Adopt to begin his adoption.
They decided to hedge their bets. Perhaps
Denise could be reasonable and aid them against Amrex and on Oleg and Elena’s
appeal. And complete Alexander’s
adoption on top of that.
Unfortunately, nobody was around to answer the telephone at the Giant Succotash
in Medina so Alysha left a message on the voicemail system.
We wonder: was the tape recorder running that day?
Exasperated that she could not reach BBAS, she broke down and emailed Veronika
at Amrex stating their intentions to keep Oleg and Elena’s appeal going.
This was Aug. 20.
They
never received a direct response from Veronika or anyone at Amrex after this but
they were to receive confirmation that Veronika received Alysha’s heart felt
appeal about Oleg and Elena.
As mentioned previously, Amrex’s employees and directors were experiencing a
difficult summer. Angry clients from Adoption Alliance and Genesis with lost
referrals were turning the screws on Amrex.
One was an Adoption Alliance couple who had traveled to Russia in November 2000 to adopt a lovely little girl. They visited the girl at the orphanage and were impressed with her intelligence, her vivaciousness and charm.
They held her in their arms and told her of the plans they had for her
future. Unfortunately, during the court date, the judge threw them and their
facilitator out of the court room and told the facilitator never to return: the
girl had never been legally available for foreign adoption. They traveled home
without the girl, utterly shocked and desolate.
Another Adoption Alliance couple and two Genesis clients had been given
referrals for little babies, only to be called by Amrex and told before they
traveled that their referrals had either been adopted by other Americans or
Russians or that family members had claimed their children.
These Adoption Alliance and Genesis clients found one another. One of the Genesis clients, living in the Atlanta Metropolitan area contacted a local TV news reporter about his plight.
Before any negative publicity hit, the Genesis client got both his
dossier and his money back Amrex/Genesis. Oh,
and he and his wife returned home from Russia in November 2001 with a healthy
child using the Frank Foundation.
In order to put out the fire, so to speak, the couple from Adoption Alliance who
had lost the little girl in Yekaterinburg was directly paid off by Serg Nickols
to the tune of $25,000. Cynically, Serg
asked the person dealing with this family “Is $25,000 all they want?”
After that, Adoption Alliance and Amrex parted company, taking with it its coveted Russian accreditation. For Amrex, only Beacon House’s accreditation remained to umbrella under.
After dealing directly with so many angry clients all at once, the edict was
soon handed down to member agencies: deal directly with your own clients and do not have them contact
us directly. It
was their way of isolating themselves from their own malfeasance in hiring less-than-stellar facilitators in Russia, especially that Slava from Revda who had
cost them Yekaterinburg and the umbrallaing protection of Adoption Alliance’s
accreditation.
Veronika, after living through that mess, smartened up and forwarded Alysha’s email to Always-Online Denise. It seemed that email was the only way to get Denise’s attention.
Whatever Veronika’s email said, it got Denise’s attention since she
almost immediately got up off her computer and called Alysha to read her the
riot act.
She was
off the wall, nearly spitting fire at Alysha. “Never contact Amrex directly!” Denise raged.
“Amrex doesn’t work that way! Veronika
is only a mediator — she has nothing to do with cases! You must deal only
with
me and Wendy!”
Gosh.
That Denise really hated it when her authority (or what little of it
AMREX let her keep) was undermined.
On Aug. 28, the anvil fell on the Towells’ hearts, in the form of a
telephone call from Denise L. Hubbard with scorching news.
A “judge” had looked at their case, opened their new dossier file (it
had been miraculously discovered) and refused to read it.
The dossier included the original petition to adopt by Brian Towell as a single
person and the denial by the judge in April. Because
of the denial, the “judge” refused to open their new dossier and review the
case.
The Towells discovered months after the fact the above was another LIE concocted by Denise. There had been no judge, there had been no review of their second dossier.
I needn’t go into details about what devastating news this was for the Towell
family. Their world and their hopes were
in free fall. They loved Oleg and Elena
so very much — and this had happened with those they had trusted to do
the right thing.
You know and I know and the Towells know: Amrex’s “Russian team” hadn’t
even made an attempt at an appeal.
Denise L.
Hubbard changed cloaks and became “Agency Director Who Will Substitute A Kid
For You.” She gave them the following
options in a telephone call she had with Alysha while Brian was at work.
First, Amrex could appeal the children’s case (which should have been done in the first place). She stressed to them that it was Amrex’s opinion that they could not win the appeal.
Denise said “No one has won an appeal after being denied in court and
Amrex has never won an appeal.” Had
Amrex ever even attempted an appeal before? Where
had Denise Hubbard obtained that information? Who
had told her this?
The second option was BBAS/Amrex’s easy way out, the same thing BBAS/Amrex had
been pestering them to do after Brian had returned from Russia. Drop Oleg and Elena’s appeal and accept a ready-made Amrex
referral from the other region.
Denise emphasized “the Russian reps” had told her a judge in the other region of Russia would know nothing of the Towell’s denial in Blagoveshchensk.
How else to still cover her mistakes and come out on top for the Towells?
She said they must fax BBAS a letter stating that they would no longer pursue
Oleg and Elena’s appeal and adoption if they to accept another referral from
Amrex.
The region was Primorskiy Kray (“Maritime Frontier”), or Vladivostok. Again,
it was Amrex’s opinion Denise told them, that Primorskiy Kray was
the region in Russia where they had the most “connections,” their
“easiest” region.
To be fair, BBAS had placed children from Vladivostok since its creation in 1998
with Dennis Gornostaev. They should
have had knowledge of the region and its orphanages.
But Alysha had to haggle with Denise directly about the timeline of this
decision. At first Denise told them they had until the end of that day
to decide, which was ludicrous. One just
can’t decide children’s fate by the close of the business day.
Alysha countered that she would have to speak with Brian about this — these
children were to have been raised by them both, and to leave him out of this
would be a breach of trust on her part. She
told Denise that Brian was at work and therefore, could not be reached until he
got home owing to the nature of his job in the military.
Denise didn’t believe Alysha that Brian was on duty. She had the cheek, after she got off the telephone from Alysha, to call Brian’s
commanding officer to see if Brian was actually at work!
Who the hell gave her the authority to do such things?
The commander was not pleased or happy at to answer such questions about his
officers while they were on shift. Maybe
Denise didn’t realize that she was calling a military installation and they
had better things to do with their time than to talk to con artists running
adoption agencies? (It would not, unfortunately, be Denise’s only misstep in
dealing with the military in connection with Alysha’s adoption).
Alysha later learned the officer gave the info to Denise and that is all.
He asked Brian about the strange telephone call he had received from
their adoption agency. Brian was not happy either.
Once Denise had confirmed that Brian was indeed on duty and unavailable to make
these important decisions, she relented and told Alysha that they would have
until the 31st to let them know.
How kind. How caring.
How considerate. Denise pimps hard
for her money.
For
three agonizing days the Towells went back and forth about abandoning Oleg and
Elena. If seven American families
and one single woman in Russia had passed on Oleg, what future did he have in
his present physical condition?
Elena was
another story. Since she was so young,
female, beautiful, smart and bubbly, she would be an instant sale for Amrex.
The Towells hated to think this, yet they knew there was a strong possibility Elena had been already been “placed” with a family in the United States.
On Aug. 31 the Towells called Medina with their final decision. They were not
abandoning Oleg and Elena, come the wrath of the Russian adoption gods or not.
These were their children and they were sticking with them.
Denise really slipped into EVIL AGENCY DIRECTOR mode. She hissed, upon hearing
this news, that “time was up” and that they could no longer appeal Oleg and
Elena’s adoption since they hadn’t replied fast enough to Amrex.
The only option remaining to them was to accept
another referral for another child from Vladivostok.
It’s obvious that Denise L. Hubbard never does anything for anybody’s
adoption except augment her own income with her client’s nonrefundable cash
(oh, wait a minute, those are the same thing).
At first she may have talked a good line about how much Oleg should be
with the Towells, but they were sufficiently clued in enough that they were
going to walk the walk and talk the talk and see what they could get out of her
— and how far Denise was willing to go for them.
Which is, in other words, not far.