IN - Couple charged with abandonment of adopted child after legally changing her age, Sept 2019

[bears10]

Why wouldn't you want your adoption regulated? I've heard of people that adopted young russian kids even as toddlers the orphanages damaged them psychologically and adoptive parents couldn't handle them. I could see where that might be hard to find the right resources. Rehoming might be a way to sell a kid to god knows who. If there is no paperwork maybe they didn't want her as child. Is there proof she went to school do teachers remember her. This sounds like human trafficking.

I mean *i* would want my adoption regulated. So I don’t have answers to your questions but the link I posted has a few Q&A that gives insight into why people do it. Not saying they are good reasons.

 

[cherrymeg]

I mean *i* would want my adoption regulated. So I don’t have answers to your questions but the link I posted has a few Q&A that gives insight into why people do it. Not saying they are good reasons.

People are more particular about rehoming a dog. Some of them are scam artists. I don't get how selling or giving a kid away is not human trafficking. If people adopt from other countries they should have the means to support the kids they adopt. Being a foster parent allows you to return children if they don't work out or run away.

 

[Breezie]

"Autistic Genius" Jacob Barnett's Story is Touching, But How Much Money Will be Made Off Of His Intelligence? | BetaKit

This is an older article but it is interesting because it seems like she has made a living off of her book, speaking engagements, and workshops. Her website advertised a three day spark workshop for families that costs $2,000. Her son is unique because he is a genius and what worked for him might not work for other families.

The Spark Method

Her website may be temporarily disabled because the link to it no longer works.

 

[AgeofAquaruis]

I don't believe her. For several reasons.
She goes on,and on about how Godly,and what a super duper mom she is. Nurturing her autistic son.....
She never mentioned her adopting the daughter,and how virtuous it was to do so.
Her ex told authorities they knew the girl was a minor before changing her age.
She is extremely evasive about anything that has to do with the adoptive daughter,and where she is.
She posted on FB about doing a media interview. Making herself out to be a victim. Yet no interview with LE, to clear this up once,and for all.
Hmmmmmmmmm.

 

[cherrymeg]

I mean *i* would want my adoption regulated. So I don’t have answers to your questions but the link I posted has a few Q&A that gives insight into why people do it. Not saying they are good reasons.

I could understand if people are desperate for a child although the rehoming isn't really legal and if you aren't molesting kids, and you actually are a good parent wouldn't there always be concern that the state or the original adoptive parents could reclaim a kid? It seemed like the homes profiled all had a bunch of kids. I think one had 17 at once. If you are taking in troubled kids you should have help, and be trained to deal with children that have special needs. I realize you don't have the answers personally but it's just insane.

 

[Breezie]

I don't believe her. For several reasons.
She goes on,and on about how Godly,and what a super duper mom she is. Nurturing her autistic son.....
She never mentioned her adopting the daughter,and how virtuous it was to do so.
Her ex told authorities they knew the girl was a minor before changing her age.
She is extremely evasive about anything that has to do with the adoptive daughter,and where she is.
She posted on FB about doing a media interview. Making herself out to be a victim. Yet no interview with LE, to clear this up once,and for all.
Hmmmmmmmmm.

She also said that she is going to do the media interview, without an attorney, even though a couple of commenters advised her not to do that.

 

[cherrymeg]

I don't believe her. For several reasons.
She goes on,and on about how Godly,and what a super duper mom she is. Nurturing her autistic son.....
She never mentioned her adopting the daughter,and how virtuous it was to do so.
Her ex told authorities they knew the girl was a minor before changing her age.
She is extremely evasive about anything that has to do with the adoptive daughter,and where she is.
She posted on FB about doing a media interview. Making herself out to be a victim. Yet no interview with LE, to clear this up once,and for all.
Hmmmmmmmmm.

I think being the victim of fraud would have been another book for her. I can't adopt kids and drop them in random places. Is the genius really a genius? Is he her bio kid?

 

[bears10]

I could understand if people are desperate for a child although the rehoming isn't really legal and if you aren't molesting kids, and you actually are a good parent wouldn't there always be concern that the state or the original adoptive parents could reclaim a kid? It seemed like the homes profiled all had a bunch of kids. I think one had 17 at once. If you are taking in troubled kids you should have help, and be trained to deal with children that have special needs. I realize you don't have the answers personally but it's just insane.

I agree with you. If you are a good person, stable income, and nothing to hide, there are hundreds of thousands of kids that you can legally, legitimately foster and adopt. We aren’t talking about a couple desperate for a young baby, since they adopted her when she was already 8 (or close to that age, I can’t remember off the top of my head). I have my own issues with international adoptions due to the amount of children here who need loving homes, but my personal issues aside, I can understand why people adopt internationally when they want a baby. This girl was not a baby, and regardless of how old she ends up being, they knew she was at least 8 or so. There is no reason to illegally adopt an 8 year old in a “rehoming” situation when you can legally foster or adopt a child that age. In my opinion at least.

 

[Breezie]

I think being the victim of fraud would have been another book for her. I can't adopt kids and drop them in random places. Is the genius really a genius? Is he her bio kid?

He is her bio kid and it appears that he is really a genius.

Teen prodigy finds home at Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute | The Star

 

[raja]

They may not have been able to legally adopt a child. This mother appears to be all about herself. "Look what I can do with children that have challenges". I bet this played into why she adopted this child. When things did not work out she wanted nothing more to do with her. Perhaps the doctors statements to change her age were falsified. The thing I can not wrap my head around is how would an 8, 9,10 year old take care of herself left in an apartment alone? This is a wild one for sure. I tried to explain it to my DH and I sounded like a nut.

 

[GoneGoldfishin']

I can tell you from personal, currently happening events that there seems to be NO legal recourse for this buying and selling of children with special needs. If a "parent" doesn't want to care for his child anymore, they truly can just give him away, without going through any legal or court ordered procedure, or even notifying the non-custodial parent. I am living this nightmare right now. I appreciate the article on re-homing posted upthread, I may be able to reference it the next time I speak with the investigators.

 

[gitana1]

I read the parents contested the neighbors becoming her guardian due to an age issue, and then a couple of years later the neighbor abandoned their petition to become guardian. For all we know, they could have fought it so another person didn’t get scammed. They may not have pressed charges because they adopted her in an illegal or immoral manner. I am not sure at this point what to think. It is really odd to me that the adoptee was in the care of three different families, all of which didn’t seem to work out. And that a young child was able to survive on her own for so long.

The parents would've had to contest the guardianship to forestall a neglect charge. They were pretending she was over 18. Guardianships are for minor children only.

It's not odd to me that she has been in three families. She was adopted from Eastern Europe at an older age. Which meant she was in an orphanage for a long time. Institutionalized. And if she has special needs well Eastern Europeans don't view or treat people with disabilities very well in general.
New report says children with disabilities in Eastern Europe often face a bleak existence

For her to come out of that without behavioral issues would be miraculous.

But do we know where she is now? And what happened to the last family? By my calculations she would've been about 17-18 when they dismissed their petition for guardianship which would make sense as she would not longer be a minor.

 

[Breezie]

Jacob Barnett,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity | Daily Mail Online


But for his mother Kristine Barnett, 36, and the rest of the family, math remains a tricky subject.

Speaking to the paper, Mrs Barnett said: 'I flunked math. I know this did not come from me.'

She admits here that she is not very bright. Even if the letter, from the doctor, turned out to be valid, and the girl was an adult, she was still wrong to dump her, in an apartment, without resources, like plenty of food, a bus pass, and a case manager to help her learn to live independently.

 

[cherrymeg]

Reuters Investigates - The Child Exchange

I can tell you from personal, currently happening events that there seems to be NO legal recourse for this buying and selling of children with special needs. If a "parent" doesn't want to care for his child anymore, they truly can just give him away, without going through any legal or court ordered procedure, or even notifying the non-custodial parent. I am living this nightmare right now. I appreciate the article on re-homing posted upthread, I may be able to reference it the next time I speak with the investigators.

I don't get how this can be legal. I don't know what you are going through but this seems like a way to abuse kids.

 

[gitana1]

Possible Timeline:

2008 - child is brought here from Ukraine through an adoption process.

2008 - Doctors estimate her age as 8 years old.

2010- child is adopted by the Barnetts. Not sure what happened to the first adoption.

2012 - skeletal survey shows child's age to be 11. (This matches with the first doctor finding)

2012 - Barnetts legally change the child's age to 22 in a probate court process. (How they acquired evidence for this change we do not know).

2013 - 4-9-13 The Spark memoir is published. (There is apparently no mention of the adopted daughter in the book but I have no idea what time range it spans). Mother immediately starts and intensive publicity tour.

2013 - in July, the Barnetts rent an apartment in Laffayette for the child and leave her there. They pay the rent on the place but it's not sure for how long? It seems like through 2016.

2014 - the Barnetts divorce.

2016 - 2-28-16, kid moves out of the county.

2016- @3-13-16, another person or persons apply to be her guardian.
The Barnetts object to the petition citing an age issue.

2018 - the people who filed the petition for guardianship withdraw their petition. (Note the child would be 17 or 18 by then so maybe no need).

Apologies @gitana1 - I've just seen you already did one on page one. Thank you.

Bumping to make it easier to find.

 

[Bjax]

I don’t believe the mother’s story either, but will they not have to extradite her from Canada if that is where she is living

She decided not to be a parent to her daughter.

Happy that at least they allowed her to live, because some parents would have chosen a “she ran away from home” story to hide the fact she was no longer wanted by them and “they have no idea where she could be” when she suddenly disappeared

It could also be that to immigrate to Canada they would need all of her legal and proper documentation and since they most likely could not provide that, left her behind.

They did what was easiest for them

I wonder if LE needed docs from the daughters birth country and other tests to confirm she was a child and now teen to finally charge the parents

LE has to be sure also that she was 11 when she was abandoned

In 2012 she would have been 11, but the mom in my opinion scammed her age to “legally leave her behind” in the USA.

Otherwise why would she continue paying rent for an adult if she honestly knew she was. Makes no sense, was it not for several years she did this.

Does the mom seem that kind hearted to assist her adopted adult daughter pay rent when she did not even mention her in her own book, kind of like out of sight, out of mind

Kind of hard to reconcile the two

 

[Breezie]

She is fundraising, for a lawyer, on her Learning The Spark facebook page, which has only 106 members. Parents of children, with disabilities, should know that it is not okay to dump anyone, with a disability, even if they are over 18.

 

[bears10]

The parents would've had to contest the guardianship to forestall a neglect charge. They were pretending she was over 18. Guardianships are for minor children only.

It's not odd to me that she has been in three families. She was adopted from Eastern Europe at an older age. Which meant she was in an orphanage for a long time. Institutionalized. And if she has special needs well Eastern Europeans don't view or treat people with disabilities very well in general.
New report says children with disabilities in Eastern Europe often face a bleak existence

For her to come out of that without behavioral issues would be miraculous.

But do we know where she is now? And what happened to the last family? By my calculations she would've been about 17-18 when they dismissed their petition for guardianship which would make sense as she would not longer be a minor.

But she legally wasn’t a minor at that point anyway to their knowledge since they had her age legally changed before they left her.

ETA I personally do not think it’s in any way normal, acceptable, or okay for a child that was adopted internationally to be “rehomed” three times. Adoption agencies are supposed to provide support for struggling parents (especially since many Eastern European adoptees have mental health issues) and they are also supposed to keep tabs on the adoptees. Where is the adoption agency??? Where is the first couple that adopted her???

 

[Breezie]

I don’t believe the mother’s story either, but will they not have to extradite her from Canada if that is where she is living

She decided not to be a parent to her daughter.

Happy that at least they allowed her to live, because some parents would have chosen a “she ran away from home” story to hide the fact she was no longer wanted by them and “they have no idea where she could be” when she suddenly disappeared

It could also be that to immigrate to Canada they would need all of her legal and proper documentation and since they most likely could not provide that, left her behind.

They did what was easiest for them

I wonder if LE needed docs from the daughters birth country and other tests to confirm she was a child and now teen to finally charge the parents

LE has to be sure also that she was 11 when she was abandoned

In 2012 she would have been 11, but the mom in my opinion scammed her age to “legally leave her behind” in the USA.

Otherwise why would she continue paying rent for an adult if she honestly knew she was. Makes no sense, was it not for several years she did this.

Does the mom seem that kind hearted to assist her adopted adult daughter pay rent when she did not even mention her in her own book, kind of like out of sight, out of mind

Kind of hard to reconcile the two

She did not pay the rent for long because the girl was evicted in 2014 for nonpayment of rent.

New evidence raises more questions in bizarre child neglect case

The neglect charges state Michael and Kristine continued to pay rent for the girl in Lafayette. But according to other court documents, she was evicted for not paying rent in May 2014 and left no forwarding address to pay the judgement and court costs.

 

[Breezie]

It is possible that Kristine found a doctor who thought the girl was an adult and the letter was not falsified. She is blaming the girl for being a scammer but the age discrepancy would have started in the Ukraine. Kids can end up going from an orphanage to the street at age 16 there. Someone might have thought they were helping her to be adopted by lowering her age which would have worked easily because she is so small. This possibility might be why it took so long to verify her actual age.