here comes my role.
Goodbye
to the pavement, hello to my soul.”
-Heaven
17
Daniel
and I never got our chance to come across with our Sept. 15 ultimatum.
On
Sept. 11 (yes … ironically enough, as emotionally turbulent we were at the
time, we had no idea of what that day would come to mean for the whole world a
mere year later), as Daniel sat at the computer writing out our demands to
Richard J. Marco, Jr. there came a knock on our front door.
We went
down the stairs to answer it. It was our friendly, neighborhood mailman with a certified
letter from — Richard J. Marco Jr. of the Marco, Marco and Bailey law firm.
The
following letter is injury heaped with insult and stupidity on top of idiocy by
an attorney better known for “family law” than for adoption in the greater
Cleveland Ohio area.
If it
was meant to scare us into submission, it failed miserably. Denise Hubbard
really had to do better than this in her choice for “corporate attorney.” I
want to say Mr. Marco is a scumbag, but that’s not a strong enough term.
“Shithead” is.
September
8, 2000
Dear
Mr. and Mrs. Case:
Please
find enclosed the translated certificate of birth for Paul Anguel Case.
Also, please be advised as to the travel dates necessary for the completion
of the adoption process. It will be necessary that you arrive in Sophia on
October 8th. On October 9th you will visit the orphanage
and pick up your son. The medical appointment will be on October 10th, the
Embassy appointment will be on October 11th and you can then
return to the United States commencing on October 12th. It will
be necessary that you FAX to Building Blocks the travel itinerary, including
the flights and such pertinent information.
Please
take note that in the event that you hold over in another country on your
return from Sophia it will be necessary for you to secure a transit visa in
order for your son to stay over night in said country. Otherwise, he will
not be permitted to leave the international part of the airport. It would be
best, therefore, for there to be a non-overnight hold over or a non-stop
flight to the United States. In the event that you do have an overnight hold
over the transit visa will need to be secured while you are in Bulgaria. You
should probably anticipate your plans as best as possible.
I
wish you the best in your adoption.
Unfortunately,
there continues to be issues that are raised with respect to the personal
relationship between yourselves and Building Blocks Adoption Service. I have
received from Building Blocks a tape recoding of telephone messages as well
as an indication of caller identification number. These indicate certain
obscene and profane messages emanating from your house. This is totally
unnecessary and, in my opinion, absurd. I went to Bulgaria with Denise
Hubbard recently. She discussed your case extensively with the Bulgarian
representatives, as she did with any other case. She did her best to secure
the appointments for the pick up of your child. There was no animosity and
there was no discussion designed to infringe on your adoption in any way.
Your actions and implications are resented.
Further,
it is not necessary that I inform you of my travel plans. My office is still
here and I have people that are present and functioning. I resent the
personal implication that I need to confirm my work schedule with you and
will not do so. You should be aware that an e-mail address that contains a
name other than my own is not mine. The e-mail that my family uses for
personal purposes is not to be infringed upon by you for business purposes.
I have a family life and a home life and do not appreciate your invasion of
that particularly with derogatory comments.
It
is unfortunate that you continue to raise an adversarial relationship with
Building Blocks Adoption Services, while continuing to use those services.
Had you had such a problem with them then perhaps you should have terminated
the adoption process at some time in the past. We will continue to honor our
responsibilities to you, but will not provide any services beyond the
completion of the adoption of your son.
As
far as the release previously sent, if it is your intention not to sign a
release and to seek legal recourse, then do so. Just indicate so, one way or
the other.
When we
read this, we were stunned.
Were they
that paranoid at BBAS that they had Caller ID? Did they call the bomb
squad out after I had called? If this was an attempt to cause me to fear
any legal retaliation, the courts in Orange County, New York, would love to hear
from them.
We find it
highly amusing that he prevaricated and obfuscated on behalf of his client and
then had the audacity to blame us for calling him on it. People like this are in the adoption business. Medina
County’s best family law practitioner, we’re sure.
In the
early 1990s, interestingly enough, Marco and his partner Steven Bailey were sued for
malpractice by a former client, Dale Edwards, a protracted case settled out of
court in 1998.
Legally,
this means nothing about Rick’s liability for the purported malpractice. But
consider that tort lawyers often try to talk their clients out of legal
malpractice actions, since not only do they require proving that the client’s
original lawyer was a complete idiot, but that the original case was so solid
that a competent lawyer would have won it handily.
That this
one went on to the point of deposing the then-Cleveland police chief and police
union head ... that’s unusual.
He
and Denise were two peas in a pod. She was a coward and he was a hired muck
cleaner.
Only problem is, his brushes and cleaning solution were just too
sullied with the crap that Denise kept on tossing his way. She just kept tossing so much out, there was only so much
cleaning up he could do.
We
were happy to have a travel date — at long last — for Anguel, but that wait
had taken a toll on me. I wasn’t filled with the relief I had been
expecting.
Instead, I was filled with dread and fear about how bad off
Anguel was going to be emotionally, physically and mentally.
Truthfully,
I had spent every day for the past nine months worrying over the process and his
health. Not receiving any information on his orphanage, his caregivers and
his daily schedule caused many doubts to enter our minds about his environment
and if we had indeed done the right thing by pursuing his adoption.
Of course we
got on the telephone right away to inform our families, but nobody was elated
like they had when we told them we were traveling for Cyril. The mood was
more one of “Thank God it’s over, let’s move on.”
They, too,
had been put through the wringer by the wait and the horrible treatment we had
received. We began to make our travel arrangements, at long, long last.
Mr.
Marco’s letter particularly enraged Daniel. He waited until after we were home
to write a response.
We also moved ahead with another possible response, with another discussion with
another lawyer.
The Cleveland lawyer whom we had first sent our file to with regards to the
possibility of suing BBAS gave up private practice for a position with a large
corporation, so he was unable to continue doing anything for us.
He did, however, send back the file to us with the name of an attorney in the
Columbus area, James Albers, who had more direct experience in the adoption
field. We had gotten in touch with him in August.
In the middle of September, he called back.
“What a horrible story,” he told Daniel. “What a horrible story.”
He asked to clarify one point. When had we requested a doctor and been refused?
We hadn’t, Dan said. My mother had tried.
Mr. Albers then explained that if that was so, then the chances of a lawsuit
being successful lessened considerably. At least to the point where he didn’t
think he could be the one to take it.
He also explained that it would be hard to sue over the misrepresentations in
Anguel’s timeline, assuming we brought him home in a few weeks’ time as we
were scheduled to do.
That didn’t really surprise us. Between the contract and the law (almost none
covered international adoption at the time, which is unfortunately still the
case until the Hague Convention regulations are finalized), we ourselves had
realized that it would be hard to make a case, especially given that we had
already stated several places that we didn’t directly hold BBAS and Denise
Hubbard responsible for Cyril’s death.
But Mr. Albers offered to do two things for us all the same.
First, he said that once we gave him the word that we were home, he would write
a letter to Rick Marco suggesting that we just get our money back without any
strings attached.
BBAS’s release to us, he said, was far more imposing than
the standard release he wrote for agencies, in which clients hold the agency
harmless for any undiscovered medical conditions they find in children (There
are problems with these, many problems, but that’s not the issue here).
Second, he referred us to yet another lawyer, Leslie Scherr of Maryland, who
might be able to take the case and had a proven track record.
It was some measure of hope for accountability.