International Adoption Racketeering

Using a strategy pioneered by my law firm in this 2006 lawsuit against JCIS and NCFA-certified World Child International Adoption Agency, five couples recently filed a federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) claim against Main Street Adoption Services, based in (where else – the epicenter of bad adoptions) Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

The plaintiffs claim the international adoption agency that promised each a baby from Guatemala scammed them in a “bait and switch” scheme. They accuse the agency and three individuals of conspiring with one another “for the illegal purpose of committing fraudulent adoptions through a bait and switch scheme, an adoption scheme that offered illusory promises.”

Between 2007 and 2008, the prospective parents spent up to $25,000 apiece for adoptions that were never finalized completed. The couples suffered humiliation, outrage, indignation, sleepless nights, and severe emotional distress.

In each case, the agency promised the couples a Guatemalan child and in each case, things went wrong even after the couples traveled to Guatemala to meet the children.

The suit demands the adoption agency pay each couple triple the amount of their losses as well as cover court costs and damages of more than $75,000.

The attorney representing the adoptive parents is a well-known champion of using RICO in fraudulent adoption cases, Joni M. Fixel of Okemos, Michigan.

A copy of the complaint is here.

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