The
Corrigans’ Continuing Process
Unfortunately, the Corrigans and two other families by the name of Atkinson (see
“When Clients Attack”) and Zoldak were about to have travel delays. Much happened in February 2001.
If you will recall, there was at that time a minor international adoption scandal in the
United States and Great Britain regarding the Allen family in California who had
been set up by a “facilitator” regarding the adoption of biracial infant
twin girls.
Unfortunately, before the adoption could be finalized, the birth mother and the
facilitator conspired to remove the babies from the couple and gave them to a
family by the name of Kilshaw in Wales. Since they had first made contact
via email, the story became known as the “Internet twins” case.
This was a nasty story, which was finally resolved by the birth father of the girls
winning custody after
they were returned to the United States following a brief spell in the British child
welfare system.
This obviously caused a stir in Bulgaria. All of a sudden, their newspapers were
filled with “scandalous” stories about orphanage directors selling children to
Americans, with the hint that they might be adopting the children to harvest and
sell their organs.
The selling of body parts has always haunted Americans adopting foreign
children. It is believed by many in South America and Eastern Europe that when
Americans adopt children, the children are then used as organ donors once they
are home so the families can make money off of them.
As we all know, this
is utter bunk.
But it is a rumor that continues to be spread in certain sections of the foreign
media, especially in Eastern Europe when negative foreign adoption stories crop
up. Especially stories about babies being “sold” over the Internet.
The negative stories began in the Bulgarian newspaper Monitor in January
2001, right after the Allen and Kilshaw family adoption nightmares.
Monitor, a
publication with something of a sleazy, tabloid reputation, ran an article
critical of the adoption of Bulgarian children by foreigners and made much use
of the fact that Bulgarian children were placed on Internet photo listings –
presumably for the sale of their body parts.
One agency in the article was singled out – Adopt An Angel in Alaska.
The article showed a page from Adopt An Angel’s photolisting, showing a boy
from Bulgaria. It was all quite trumped up and hysterical sounding, but one
part of that article wasn’t: the article mentioned five orphanages being
pegged as selling children to Americans: Burgas, Vidin, Kazanlek/Buzovgrad,
Razgrad, and Kurjali.
To our knowledge, and by contact with Adopt An Angel clients, Adopt An Angel did
not place children from Kurjali, Burgas and Buzovgrad, but did have one
client traveling to Vidin.
For all of 2000, it had been Building Blocks placing
the majority of children from Bourags, Buzovgrad and Kurjali — as a matter of
fact, these three orphanages were where Denise and Valeri Kamenov started the
BBAS Bulgarian program.
The first BBAS families to travel to Bulgaria traveled to Kurjali. The
first successful placement of a Bulgarian child that BBAS had was from the
Pediatric hospital in Buzovgrad, run by Dr. Panova.
The rest came from
Kurjali, whose orphanage director was a doctor by the name of Mela Gospodinova and our own Burgas with Dr. Sabrutova as its head.
Something had happened in Bulgaria, and it wasn’t Adopt An Angel’s
fault. The proverbial smelly brown stuff had hit the fan, and it was heading
BBAS’s direction.
On Feb. 24, 2001, the post below appeared on the Bulgaria list from
the Atkinson family, BBAS clients who had identified their son from Buzovgrad
through the Rainbow Kids photolisting.
Denise was telling her clients it was all families and agencies whose
dates were to be delayed. This was upsetting enough for the Atkinsons, one of
Denise’s BIGGEST supporters, to post publicly, going against all the dictates
of THE BLOCKS:
All:
My husband and I were scheduled to leave for Bulgaria this Monday to bring
home our son who is currently in an orphanage in Buzovgrad. Our
adoption agency director called us early this morning and said that police
had taken all adoption records including those from the orphanage in
Buzovgrad or in all of Bulgaria. Our adoption agency director left for
a seminar in Washington, DC and I was so upset that I failed to ask her
this. She did say that this included any parents scheduled to pick up
their children. Has anyone else heard anything about adoptions being
stopped or have any other information that would be helpful?
This caused quite a stir on the list, for no other client from any other agency
had their pick up dates delayed at all. Denise, with the help of Valeri Kamenov, LIED
about this, causing more panic than was necessary to not only the Atkinson
family, but to many other families who were adopting with other agencies.
The Atkinsons were told to cancel their trip and advised Sue and Rob Corrigan to
ask Denise about their travel plans. Upon seeing the Atkinsons’ post, Denise
called Mrs. Atkinson up and told her not to post to the Bulgaria list anymore
about delays and cancellations for their son.
Dorothy Blevins, another BBAS Bulgaria, upon seeing the Atkinsons’ post,
called BBAS quite distraught. Denise told Dorothy that the Bulgarians were
checking to see that everything was “legal” due to the Allen/Kilshaw
adoption mess in England and the kerfuffle over the Internet connection.
Clients again were told not to post publicly because the Bulgarians were
watching!
Since Denise was out of the office when the Atkinsons posted publicly (indeed,
she was in the Washington, D.C., area for an adoption convention, as she had
posted to her website), she must have been going crazy.
Sandi Harding had the task of calming clients down. On Feb. 24, right
after the Atkinsons’ post, this email was sent to Bulgarian clients. It
was a summary of the article in Monitor, passed along from Valeri Kamenov.
I
have forwarded on your email to Denise and she will be calling you. She
has asked me to tell you not to post any messages on the Internet because
the Bulgarians monitor the boards and we do not want to cause a panic.
I am enclosing a letter from Valeri explaining the situation…Please hang
in there and read Valeri’s letter below:
Denise:
The
police have started to check all orphanages and the documents of all
children because of the photo listing that a not licensed agency from
aliaska put up on thair site. The police thinks that there are illegal adoptions.
Thay are checking also the documents of the agencies (Bulgarian and American
agencies) and also the documents of the families. Thay are checking
everybody who is involved in the adoptions in Bulgaria. All our
documents are also in the police. There are also the documents of the children who had to leave
for America with thair parents. We do not know how much it will
continue. But our lawyer advise we need to delay the trips of the
families for the middle of April. If thay can travel earlier we will
inform you. We sorry about the families who have bought tickets.
But it will be unusefull for them to come here and wait here. Without
the documents in the orphanage can not give them thair child. Without
our documents (passport, court decree, birth certificate) thay can not issue
a viza.
All
our documents are fine and legal. But we just have to wait for the
investigation to finish and receive all our documents back.
Valeri
An Adopt-An-Angel client informed me that an attorney by the name of Dobrev was
involved somehow, due to the fact “they” were investigating Buzovgrad.
Yet another fellow adopter using All God’s Children was informed that the
investigation involved all agencies that had photolistings. All of
the orphanages were allegedly undergoing a two-day audit or investigation.
But why? And why were the only families experiencing pickup delays BBAS
families?
On Feb. 26, Bulgaria Online ran this
story, translated from the Standart newspaper.
To say the least, we were stunned. The worst we had suspected was at least
partially confirmed:
ORPHANAGE INVESTIGATED FOR TRAFFICKING IN CHILDREN
Police
officers and prosecutors undertook investigation at the orphanage “Mother
and Child” in Bourgas for the reason of a warning that illicit adoptions
took place there, the police officer in Bourgas said. The Superior
Cassation Prosecutor’s Office ordered the check by the end of last week.
With the support of the Economic police in Bourgas the magistrates had
confiscated all the documents from the orphanage and filed an investigation
case.
The teams are
going to search for data on the personnel involved in a channel for
trafficking in children abroad, police sources said. Inspectors from
Bourgas and Sofia also took part in the investigation. They will check
up together with the police the documentation of the orphanage on the
adoptions made in the last three years. Every case of children adopted
abroad will be checked up separately, sources from the prosecutor’s office
elaborated.
Dr. Zhivka
Sabroutova, director of the orphanage, was not found for commentaries.
She has not showed up at the orphanage from the very beginning of the
investigation and does not answer her mobile phone. Attendants from the
orphanage admitted, however, that the police inquired them of the adopted
children several days ago.
The Bourgas
orphanage “Mother and Child” is situated in the Zornitsa residential
district close to the building of the United Regional Hospital. There
orphans and abandoned children from one month to five years of age live.
Among them are kids with congenital mental and physical malformations.
Dr. Zhivka Sabroutova was appointed director of the orphanage in 1991.
Indeed, during this time there was one family using Spence-Chapin, a Charity
agency who had gone to Spence-Chapin’s adoption seminar in New York City in August 2000
where Dr. Sabroutova was speaking.
This same family reported quite a
time adopting their daughter from the orphanage while all this was going on.
They did not paint a very nice portrait of our fair orphanage director or the
institution she was running. Or the trip they made to Burgas for
their first visit.
We learned more from this odd little article about Burgas than we ever had while
waiting over a year for Anguel.
More was to come about these investigations in
a few months. Needless to
say, the BBAS families were quite in a tizzy when the above article was sent to
them by Denise — and the link posted to the EEAC Bulgaria list by Daniel and
Elizabeth Case.
That day, when Denise was back in the office from the adoption
horse and carriage seminar she had been conducting in Virginia, the following
“Bulgarian Program Update” was sent to the clients, signed by both Valeri
Kamenov and Denise. Darn those Atkinsons for posting to the list about
their travel delay for their son!
Dear families:
As
you all may have heard this weekend (if not we are advising you at
this time) a minor delay has occurred in the Bulgarian
program. Evidentally according to Valeri, our agency representative
the police are investigating adoptions in general throughout Bulgaria due
to an agency in Alaska posting children on the Internet. The
adoptions have NOT shut down. Documents entered into the Ministries
and courts are still moving and being processed. The only delay is for
parents making trips to Bulgaria to visit orphanages for the 1st
or 2nd time due to the fact that all of the children’s files
are being taken into custody of the police to review and make sure that all
the children’s documents are in good order. Valeri assures us that all of
our parents documents and the children’s documents are in excellent
condition. As soon as these documents are released, parents will
resume traveling.
Valeri
is personally attending each investigation of our cases to ensure no
problems occur.
Right
now all must sit tight and relax. It is routine when governments
place children that they make sure all adoption rules are followed.
We will keep you posted on changes immediately.
Denise
Hubbard
Valeri
Kamenov
There it is again! It’s routine! Blame the foreign government!
They have no control! Just a minor delay! Hey, these things happen
all the time! No sweat! Put the blame on everybody but themselves
and lie to their clientele about it.
On the Corrigans’ behalf, I called three adoption agencies who all had ties to
Burgas through Charity — VIDA here in the Hudson Valley, Spence-Chapin in NYC
and AIAA out in Michigan.
Not one of these agencies was having any delay in sending
families over for pickups.
The lady I spoke with at VIDA said, “As a matter of fact, we have a family
right now in Bulgaria picking their child up. We have not been informed of
any delays.”
Of the two Adopt-An-Angel clients who were traveling to pick up their children,
not one had a problem. Nor any delays.
Hence, no agency’s clients besides BBAS’s were experiencing any
complications.
Hmm ...
One effect of all this had on all agencies was that on the public
photolisting sites, any and all Bulgarian children were immediately removed from
Rainbow Kids, Precious In His Sight and the Welcome Garden. This was from AIAA
to Adopt An Angel to BBAS to FOC to any and all agencies who placed pictures of
the Bulgarian children.
You can imagine the sadness and frustration that the Corrigan family feeling.
They had a travel date at long last for N – and then the “snags” and fun
were to begin in earnest with BBAS, the Bulgarian scandal and then with Rick
Marco’s involvement .