Adoption lawyer, Kevin Cohen, was arrested at his home on Friday. He has been accused of taking over $65,000 from couples for failing to deliver on a promised adoption. The charges that Cohen is facing include second-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheme to defraud and third-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.He is facing up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
This is a heartless scam. Cohen promised to help people to achieve their goals of becoming parents through adoption, but instead he didn’t follow through on those promises and broke their hearts instead. Parents want to believe that they are going to be parents. Cohen is an adoptee himself. Cohen was an adoptive parent himself. He is the last person that you would have suspected.
Cohen founded a non-profit adoption organization, Adoption Annex, in 2004. The Adoption Annex features a museum, hall of fame, support groups, and educational workshops for adoptees, adoption families, birth parents, and those considering adoption. You can find more information about it at www.adoptionannex.org.
The couple that claimed that Cohen frauded them gave him $65,000 only after he assure them that he had two prospective out-of-state birth mothers who were willing to give up their babies. Cohen even went so far as to forge medical records for the fake birth mothers. He provided them with fake sonograms and a medical history on birth mothers. This money was supposed to be held in escrow to help with the medical expenses for the birth mothers. It appears now to the prosecutor that there are no birth mothers or children.
Couples have been contacting the Nassau prosecutor’s office since Cohen’s arrest. The couples are ranging from New York as far as Texas. It has been said that there are 16 couples presently making claims. Prosecutors are waiting to see if there will be additional charges against Cohen as they calls continue coming in.
Cohen claims that he has been wrongly accused.
Prosecutors are concerned there are more victims out there. They are concerned that they might not be willing to come forward because of the emotional toll that it has taken on their family. They think that it might be a part of what they call “an adoption Ponzi scheme”. In a Ponzi scheme, the people involved do not know they are being cheated because the operator of the scheme conceals the fact from them. Indeed, essentially, a Ponzi scheme is a practice by which an individual or any outfit pays high interest payments to the first investors with the money the new investors contribute. The funds are never invested in any productive assets but are simply paid out as a return to existing or previous investors. For more information, go Here.
Comments
It is odd that there is such a great outcry over prospective adoptive parents being cheated of mere money while adoptees are legally cheated of their identities!
If adoption was an open process with accountability available directly to all the participants then there would be much less opportunity for corruption. As long as secrecy from the participants is maintained by the state, the state is complicit in every adoption crime.
Perhaps there is something additional, in legal and emotional terms, to be learned here. Doesn't the state teach that corruption in adoption is OK by asking adoptees, (and all parties to adoption) to accept falsified birth certificates with the adoptive parents named instead of birth parents while denying adoptees access to original, true, birth certificates? Imagine how you would feel if the state took your identity when you were a small, innocent child and legally kept the truth of your identity from you – forever.
It will be interesting to hear Cohen's side of things. I can't imagine a scenario that goes with his claims of being "wrongly accused."
Thanks for the news!
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