General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Woman adopts eleven children in New York City. Woman later moves to Florida.
Woman raises children - with no education beyond fourth grade, no medical care, without adequate food, without normal social contact, without freedom.
Why?
She adopted the children to collect payments from New York City. Over a million dollars in fact.
All of the children, now aged 15 to 27, suffer from physical and mental disabilities.
The woman, now 62, faces criminal charges of abuse and neglect in Florida.
And the Florida court can now request that the New York courts unseal the normally confidential adoption records.
The records are needed to nail down the identities of the victims, nine of whom are now disabled adults in the care of the state of Florida.
The whereabouts of two others is unknown.
The state just took the woman’s grandchildren from her biological son into protective custody as well.
Read more in this ABC ActionNews.com article: Florida prosecutors can ask judge to unseal records in abuse case and this Newsday article: NY adoption records relevant in Florida abuse case, judge says.
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