Guatemalan mother seeking return of son gets her day in court

Encarnacion Bail Romero

In a case which the Missouri Supreme Court described as “a travesty in its egregious procedural errors, its long duration, and its impact on Mother, Adoptive Parents, and, most importantly, Child,” Encarnacion Bail Romero will have the opportunity to regain custody of her four- year-old son. In the mean time the boy, referred to in court documents as C.M.B.R., will remain with Seth and Melinda Moser who adopted him illegally in October, 2008. 

As we wrote in December, Bail Romero came to this country illegally from Guatemala in the spring of 2006 when she was six months pregnant. Laura Davenport, a “parent educator” wiggled her way into Bail Romero’s life when C.M.B.R. was born. Bail Romero obtained work at a poultry processing plant, leaving her son with her brother during the day. In May, 2007,  the feds aka the Department of Homeland Security – Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided the poultry plant and slapped Bail Romero in jail. Eventually she was convicted of identity theft (using a phony social security number) and sentenced to two years in prison, serving her time in a West Virginia facility. (Shortly thereafter, the US Supreme Court questioned the validity of the law under which she was convicted.)

Jane

Meanwhile, Bail Romero’s brother, unable to care for C.M.B.R. as well as his own family, transferred the boy to Bail Romero’s sister. The ever helpful Davenport arranged for Jennifer and Oswaldo Velasco to care the boy during the day while the sister worked. Davenport also visited Bail Romero in jail, asking her to agree to adoption which she refused to do. Nonetheless, the Velasco’s placed the boy with the Mosers for adoption without any authority to do so. The Mosers commenced a court action to terminate Bail Romero’s rights and adopt her son.

Recognizing the case could not proceed unless Bail Romero had an attorney, the adoptive parents hired one Aldo Dominguez as her attorney. To make sure things went according to plan, the Moser’s attorney instructed Dominguez on how to proceed.

After a hearing where the Mosers based their case on hearsay and untruthful statements from the ever helpful Davenport, the trial court found that Bail Romero had abandoned her son, terminated her rights, and granted the Moser’s petition to adopt C.M.B.R.

Dominguez did not bother to appeal the case. Fortunately Bail Romero had gotten out of jail and, with the help of the Guatemalan ambassador, obtained a real lawyer who appealed the case. This lawyer, Omar Riojas, offered a mountain of evidence showing that Bail Romero had not abandoned her son, that the Moser’s evidence was bogus, and that Dominguez was incompetent. The Moser’s attorney argued the usual “it wouldn’t be in the child’s best interests to take him away from the parents he now knows” with the added punch “and send him to another country,” dirt poor Guatemala.

The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the trial court and sent the case back for a new trial. Three of the seven judges dissented in part, arguing in an opinion by Judge Laura Stith that the Court should have thrown the case out and returned little C.M.B.R., now four years and three months old, to his mother immediately.

The remand means that there will be another trial, possibly more appeals and by the time C.M.B.R. gets his driver’s license, his status may be resolved.

We at FMF are horrified at the gross violations of Bail Romero’s rights but heartened that she may eventually get her son back. We are gratified that this case is not a harbinger of a new adoption fad, reverse international adoption or legal snatching of the children of illegal immigrants. We are inspired by the words of Judge Michael Wolff in his concurring opinion:

“The United States Constitution requires respect for the rights of the birth mother. The constitution’s commands are fundamental…. The law does not allow the government to act on an assumption that one family would be better than another, for to do so would be to authorize the courts to take away the children of the poor and give them to the rich and to take the children of foreign-born parents and give them to native-born American families. _____________________________

Just a short add here: The Mosers changed the boy's name from Carlos to Jamison--quite a big change, no? And no one has mentioned that. Yet when birth father Benjamin Wyrembek got custody of his son back after a protracted-three battle with Christy and Jason Vaughn, there was much discussion over whether he would keep the very Waspy hip name of "Grayson." People like the Mosers and Vaughns are hardly better than the kidnappers who take children, as did Ann Pettway stole Carlina White from Harlem Hospital 23 years ago and named her Nejdra Nance.--lorraine