Posted on 06/27/2004 7:34:11 AM PDT by television is just wrong
Angelina Jolie's adoption agent admits fraud
SEATTLE - A Hawaii woman who helped Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie adopt a Cambodian boy pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Thursday in Manila) to visa fraud and money laundering as part of a ring that paid poor women as little as $100 for their children, her attorney said.
Lauryn Galindo, 53, and her sister in Seattle, Lynn Devin, received fees of $10,000 or more to arrange adoptions by U.S. residents of children described as orphans, even though many still had parents, according to the documents.
Devin, who pleaded guilty in December, but has not yet been sentenced, and Galindo have agreed to surrender all property associated with the crimes, including a home in Hawaii and a Jaguar automobile.
Galindo's public defender attorney, Jay Stansell, declined to comment further.
The sisters operated an agency called Seattle International Adoptions, which paired hundreds of children from Cambodia with adoptive parents from 1997 to 2001, when suspicious U.S. immigration authorities halted adoptions from the impoverished Southeast Asian country.
In one instance, Galindo faxed Devin documents with a notation saying "Father dead -- mother very poor -- Kampong Speu," referring to a 4-year-old girl who was with her birth mother in Cambodia, court documents show.
Devin and Galindo then directed the adoptive parents to pay $100 to the birth mother and paid $3,500 to the Kampong Speu orphanage, described as "Cambodian ministry clerks, employees or officials" in the plea agreement.
The adoption ring received a total of $93,700 for the adoptions cited in the case.
Describing children as "abandoned" and misidentifying many of them brought the charges of visa fraud, while financial charges stemmed from efforts to hide the profits in Cambodia and avoid financial reporting of the transactions at a bank in Hawaii.
Galindo could face up to 20 years in prison at a sentencing hearing set for September.
Prosecutors have said that the investigation will not change the status of children adopted through the Seattle adoption agency.
Jolie, who won a best supporting actress Academy Award in 2000 for her role in Girl, Interrupted and more recently starred in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Life or Something Like It, adopted her Cambodian-born son, Maddox, last year after meeting him in an orphanage in November 2001.
There are many couples with would make great parents, but don't have millions. They have difficulty adopting while the Paula Poundstones and Michael Jacksons are given a pass.
I don't think so. She doesn't parade him around and all that. Cynicism aimed at Hollywood entirely understood however!
Jolie is a unusual bird, but she does spend a lot of time in these poor countries. I really don't think she cares what other people think of her and isn't using the kid as a trophy. She is doing out of real compassion.
Does she still wear that blood vial necklace? Buying kids doesn't make someone very compassionate --- and just to preserve her own figure?
A child whose mother would sell him for $100 does need a better home --- but to be the new fad of Hollywood bimbos isn't good either.
"Aside from the alleged fraud, this has the aroma of a "trophy child" adoption, a "mommy dearest" acquisition. I don't like cynicism, but Hollywood tends to drive me to it."
Then put your cynicism aside. From all accounts, Jolie really loves that kid and has done tremendous things for Cambodia. She takes him everywhere with her and often takes him back to Cambodia to teach him about his culture. If you recall how much of a loon she was before the adoption and how she's lived afterwards to accomodate her adopted child, I think people will see that it's not just a "trophy" child adoption. Having a child really seems to have activated the mom instincts.
It doesn't seem to me that Jolie was in on the fraud so it would be a pity if she lost her child after raising him these past several years.
is this picture necessary? What's wrong with you?
:-)
I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get as well.
Jolie has flaky ideas, but I am not gonna judge her motivation as bad when there is no evidence to show otherwise. It dosen't appear she pawns this kid off to some nanny to raise, she takes him with her almost everywhere.
Feh. I can still remember her making out with her brother that one Oscar night. Gah that was creepy.
It was a bit large. It could be embarrassing to be paging through a thread and someone wonders by and all they see is cleavage on your screen.
I saw nothing wrong with the pic.
Yeah, she is an absolute flake, but that is a fine body attached to that flake.
I've got news for you always - ANYTIME you open a thread with Angelina Jolie in the title, you have to assume that there will be lots of lips- and cleavage... It's just a given... at least any time I happen to come across an Angelina thread.
I don't know if that makes her a good mother --- Michael Jackson took that monkey around with him everywhere for a while too. Maybe she is an okay mother -- I don't know but her relationship with her brother would make me wonder if she was raised with any values to be be able to be a good parent.
She often takes him back to the DAMN KILLING FIELDS which still have live landmines. Fabulous place for a child.
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