Elizabeth Garcia Villalobos

Sara felt that the mountain of paperwork, all the bureaucracies we had to deal with and all the requirements we had to fulfill was like going on a treasure hunt with the ultimate prize at the end being a child. Satisfying the requirements of the agency, the state, the US government and the foreign government as well as having all documents translated, notarized, and certified and apostilized makes standing on line at the DMV seem like a day in the park.

In May 1996, Adoption Choice, through International Adoption Consultants, informed us of the availability of a child named Elizabeth. We received a photograph, power of attorney letter, medical report and letter of assignment. At the same time, Adoption Choice sent us a contract to sign, eleven months after our initial meeting and eight months after we submitted our application and paid them their fee. Every page except the first of this contract was dated September 1995. On the first page, the date was apparently changed to May 1996, as the date is in a different typeface. When we questioned the late disclosure of this contract, Ms. Jill Gerlach, Ms. Randa's partner and head of Adoption Choice's international programs, told us that we did not have to sign anything and could forget the whole thing. We were quite taken aback by Ms. Gerlach's defensiveness when asked a valid question. We felt we had not invested three years of time, energy and paperwork in the process to just forget the whole thing, so we reluctantly signed the contract under duress. After I reviewed Agent Pace's Affidavit as included in the introduction, I suspected that this late disclosure of the contract and the altering of dates on it may have had to do with the finalization of the agreement between Adoption Choice and the Arlenes, as well as the final incorporation of International Adoption Consultants.

Adoption Choice made a very big deal about this child. Arlene Lieberman told us that she looked like a "gringo" and her pictures showed her to be frail and waifish with spindly legs. She was three and a half and had an older sister who was already in school. The Arlenes told us that the grandmother, who had legal custody of these children, put the younger child up for adoption because she could not afford to care for both of them and felt the younger child would adjust to the change easier than the older one. They went on to tell us that the grandmother may put the older sister up for adoption later if Elizabeth flourished in her new home. We had copies and enlargements made of the photos, carried and displayed them everywhere and sent copies to friends and family. We bonded easily with this child from only her picture as anyone ever involved in the process of an international adoption will tell you will usually happen. Sara was ready to paint the room we had set aside for our new arrival and buy furniture but I was able to convince her to wait until our adoption of this child was a sure thing. She was in the custody of her maternal grandmother because her parents were in a prison in Mexico for drug trafficking. Adoption Choice made quite an issue over the fact that if the parents were selling drugs, then they probably were using them as well and that this child may have undetected medical issues relating to the parent's drug use, especially if the mother was using drugs while pregnant. The drugs mentioned were marijuana and possibly cocaine. They insisted we consult a pediatrician before accepting her referral and once we did accept her referral, they had us sign a waiver of liability should the child prove to have problems relating to parental drug use. Considering the fact that the Arlenes have placed children who were represented as healthy and were proven unhealthy, perhaps Adoption Choice has had similar problems and had good reason to be overprotective and have us sign a waiver.

As I have already mentioned, the lawyer in Mexico the agency contracted with is Mario Reyes of Douglas, Arizona. We had been told he practiced in both Mexico and Arizona. We paid him the first half of his fee, $8,000, with a bank check and the child was allegedly placed in foster care with his secretary, pending court proceedings in Mexico. We were told that Mario Reyes' wife was a child psychologist who regularly visited Elizabeth and was preparing her for her new life with us. Since we had sent pictures of our home and ourselves to the agency, we envisioned Elizabeth being shown these and being told about her new home here and us. We pictured her getting excited and bonding with our photos just as we bonded with hers, while Mario's wife taught her some rudimentary English. Hindsight makes us look like foolishly stupid idiots, as we learned much later that Mario's wife knows little English. In October 1996, we were told that at her final court appearance in Mexico, Elizabeth's legal guardian, her maternal grandmother, allegedly decided she couldn't go through with giving her up. Needless to say, we were devastated and heartbroken more for a child who was now returning to a life of squalor and poverty than for ourselves. At this time Mr. Reyes did offer, through the Arlenes, to return the $8,000 we paid him or try his best to find us another child as soon as possible. Sara now believes a refund would not have happened had we decided to accept the offer. We chose the latter.

An interesting piece of the puzzle was revealed to me in December 2001. I was told that Mario Reyes and his wife flew to New York in July 1996, with a two day old boy for one of the families in our case. They were met at La Guardia airport by the family and the Arlenes and were in town for several days. Since we were waiting for Elizabeth at this time and thought that everything was going smoothly and legally, I'm almost disappointed that we were not invited to meet Mario Reyes at the time. I was also told that his wife's English was quite good, so once again the truth is elusive. Of course, since he and his wife were here smuggling a child to a family, it is understandable that we were not invited to meet them. It is also understandable that his wife would have a better command of English then rather than later, because if she had good English later, she might also have faced criminal charges along with her husband. Since much of the story about Elizabeth was a fabrication, it was also not to the advantage of either Reyes or the Arlenes to have us meet him then.