New Details Emerge in Baby-Selling Scam
By Greg Moran,
Sign On San Diego
| 10. 05. 2011
Three women who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in what authorities
said was a years-long illegal baby-selling scheme also defrauded a
state health care program and illegally distributed fertility drugs to
aid the scam, federal prosecutors now say.
Those are some of the latest allegations to surface in the case
against prominent Poway fertility lawyer Theresa M. Erickson and two
other women. The trio pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy in
July and August and are awaiting sentencing in a case that captured
national attention and led to scrutiny of the legal process governing
surrogacy arrangements in California.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed documents last week
fleshing out the scheme, including excerpts from emails among the trio
and recorded telephone calls. The evidence, the court filing said, shows
how greed drove the enterprise, reducing babies to commodities and
taking risks with the health of the women carrying the children.
Erickson, Carla Chambers and Hilary Neiman are accused of soliciting
women to travel to the Ukraine to be implanted with embryos. Defense
lawyers for Erickson and Chambers did...
Related Articles
CGS is excited to announce the launch of a new anti-eugenics initiative that has been years in the making. Legacies of Eugenics in Science, Medicine, and Technology kicks off with a monthly essay series published at the Los Angeles Review of Books that will expose and contest the reemergence of eugenic ideas in contemporary health sciences, human biotechnology, public health, and medicine. Community and campus-based events featuring the authors are also being planned. The project is a collaboration among CGS...
By Jason Kehe, Wired | 04.11.2024
God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born...
By Neel Shah, The Preprint | 04.11.2024
Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...