Mary Bonn arrested

Guatemala: Adoption Service Provider Under Investigation


The Office of Childrens Issues has learned from official sources of the arrest of American adoption service facilitator Mary Bridget Bonn in Florida . It is our understanding that Ms. Bonn is charged with facilitating the illegal entry of Guatemalan children to the United States .

As this case is an ongoing law enforcement matter, the Department is unable to provide any further information. However, in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala , we are following this case very closely and cooperating with the investigating agencies.

Please monitor our website at: http://travel.state.gov/family/family_1732.html under

[Law200]

Where did you find this, whoever posted this?

Mary Bonn arrested in Florida; government announcement

Former Minnesotan faces charges after bringing child
back from Guatemala

BY FREDERICK MELO

Pioneer Press
Posted on Sun, Feb. 18, 2007

By many accounts, Mary Bridgett Bonn dedicated her
life to matching abandoned children from around the
world to loving U.S. families, including her own.

But when a Washington state couple seemed hesitant to
bring their adopted daughter Karen

Former Minnesotan faces charges after bringing child
back from Guatemala

BY FREDERICK MELO

Pioneer Press
Posted on Sun, Feb. 18, 2007

By many accounts, Mary Bridgett Bonn dedicated her
life to matching abandoned children from around the
world to loving U.S. families, including her own.

But when a Washington state couple seemed hesitant to
bring their adopted daughter Karen an underweight
Guatemalan infant with health problems home to the
U.S., Bonn apparently decided for them. In late April,
the 44-year-old adoption facilitator allegedly forged
Karen's travel papers and had her flown to Naples,
Fla., where she spent nine months raising the child as
her own.

After months of frantic inquiries, the couple hired a
private investigator, who tracked the girl to Bonn's
home.

Bonn, a former St. Paul resident who coordinated
overseas adoptions for several Minnesota agencies, was
arrested by immigration authorities in Florida this
month, where she faces federal charges of harboring an
illegal alien.

"It's not as serious as smuggling or human
trafficking," said Bonn's attorney, Landon Miller.
"She was not doing this for profit. She didn't want to
see the child left in the orphanage."

But news of her arrest has sent ripples of surprise
and concern throughout the growing U.S. community of
international adoptive families. Internet forums like
GuatAdopt.com and Adoption.com have buzzed with
speculation about the case - the second scandal in as
many months to throw a cloud over the labyrinthine
process of relocating orphans from abroad.

The buzz appears to be especially strong in Minnesota,
historically a top destination for foreign-born
orphans in the United States. Nationwide, the U.S.
State Department granted 20,679 immigrant visas to
orphans last year, nearly triple the 7,093 granted in
1990.

Tamara Hillstrom, a Minneapolis adoption coordinator,
was visiting Guatemala with Bonn last year at the same
time as Karen's adoptive mother. Hillstrom said her
agency has since severed its ties to Bonn, and while
she does not condone her friend's alleged actions, "I
know why she did it."

"I was there while she was asking this family to
please give this baby a chance," Hillstrom said.
"Mary's fear was that if she was put in a Guatemalan
orphanage, she'd be dead in a month."

Bonn, who lived in Burnsville and Stillwater in the
late 1990s, had contracts in recent years with at
least three Minnesota agencies to locate eligible
adoptive children in Guatemala. She served as the
agencies' official liaison in the country, meeting
with doctors, attorneys and foster parents.

"She was very helpful," said Beth Kantor, of Plymouth,
who in October adopted a Guatemalan boy, Alex, with
Bonn's help. "She is the reason we have our son home.
With our family, she was nothing but caring and loving
and supportive of us."

Bonn's mother and sister also worked as adoption
facilitators in Minnesota and Latin America, and Bonn
has adopted at least seven children herself, many of
them with special needs. Among them was a St. Paul
girl with a heart condition.

Karen Hannah, owner of Summit Adoptions Home Study
Inc. in St. Paul, said she also saw the "humanitarian"
side of the Bonn family firsthand. But when clients
began to complain about lapses in communication, her
agency gradually began severing its ties to the three
Bonns in the late 1990s.

Mary Bonn did not return calls seeking comment.

"Sometimes, out of their own pocket, they would pay
for kids' medical bills," Hannah said. "I think they
meant well. But once the Internet came out, people
could compare notes. And it just didn't work with
clients to do it the old way."

A criminal complaint filed against Bonn this month in
U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, Fla., details the
charges.

While under contract with a Pennsylvania adoption
agency last year, Bonn helped the Washington state
couple adopt the infant girl from Guatemala. In March
2006, the girl's adoptive mother went to pick up
10-month-old Karen at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala,
but was surprised to learn that she showed delayed
motor skills and suffered from malnutrition.

Rather than bring Karen to the U.S. to finalize the
adoption, the woman returned alone "to obtain medical
testing and advice regarding her daughter's medical
condition."

Before leaving Guatemala, the mother had a phone
consultation with Marilou Pederson, an Eden Prairie
physician. Pederson recalled that the woman seemed
"hesitant to accept this little baby" and "angry that
she was not a big, healthy baby."

"When you're yearning for a child, and you find a
child that has got some health issues, I'm sure it
took (Karen's adoptive family) aback," said Jane
Costello, a former client from Simsbury, Conn. "But
they were legally her parents, and they left the
country."

In the months that followed, Bonn told the adoptive
couple she didn't know where Karen was and "suggested
that she was either in a national orphanage (in
Guatemala) or returned to the birth mother," according
to the complaint.

Tipped off by a private investigator, agents with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Collier
County Sheriff's office searched Bonn's home Feb. 2,
located the 21-month-old girl and arrested Bonn.

Bonn admitted to federal authorities that she had
falsified the child's biographical information to get
her into the country on a visitor's visa April 29,
according to the complaint. But she would not
elaborate on who funded the travel or whether a woman
who had brought the child into the country by posing
as her mother had been paid.

At the time of her arrest, Bonn said that the adoptive
family "didn't want that baby," that the adoptive
father just wanted his money back and that she had
saved Karen.

Bonn made her initial court appearance in U.S.
District Court on Feb. 5 and was released in lieu of
$50,000 bond. Karen was expected to be united with her
adoptive family last week, but it's unclear whether
the government will seek to remove Bonn's other
adopted children, Bonn's attorney said.

The U.S. State Department's Office of Children's
Issues posted a brief statement regarding the case on
its Web site, indicating the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala
was assisting in the investigation.

In Minnesota, one of the agencies Bonn had previous
contracts with was Reaching Arms International, which
is now under investigation by the Minnesota Department
of Human Services. At least 19 families have
complained about the New Hope agency, some of them
after paying large sums up front but never receiving
their adopted children from Guatemala or Russia.

In late January, state Attorney General Lori Swanson
said she would seek a court-appointed auditor to
review Reaching Arms' finances.

Beth and Brad Kantor, who originally sought to adopt
Alex through Reaching Arms, said Bonn played a large
role in their being warned about the agency. The
Kantors said that when the company threatened to
abandon them as clients, Bonn referred the couple to A
Family Journey, which completed the legal work with
the same child.

The Kantors had planned to thank Bonn - whom they had
spoken with only by phone - in person at a Christmas
party in Prior Lake last year, but they canceled when
one of their children became sick.

Frederick Melo can be reached at
fmelo@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2172.

[Law200]

Thanks for the news print update as well.

When is her court date, does anybody know? I would also like to follow that.

She just got a continuance, today. It was supposed to be in a couple of weeks, but now it is June 4th of this year. Another status conference is scheduled for May 14th, however.

You might be interested to know that her bail was nearly revoked for witness tampering and not abiding by the terms of her bail. I imagine the only thing that saved her was that the judge took pity on her family.

If you want to read the other side of this story (the real story) go to www.guatadopt.com. They're pretty involved, as an adoption advocate, and are following this case closely.

I can tell you that I know the adoptive family in this story, and that they did not CHOOSE to leave their child there, as is being reported repeatedly in the media. The adoption was final, and she was legally theirs (they were not spending that time trying to decide if they wanted to finalize the adoption). The mother had to travel alone to pick the baby up, and the embassy denied the baby's visa. She was DENIED permission to bring her into the U.S., at that time. She went home, to garner the emotional and rational support of her husband and to figure out what to do next: how to get her child home, and what to do for her, once she was home.

Mary Bonn had no right to decide whether these people were fit to be parents, so she had no right to take their child. She also was not "saving" the baby from an orphanage or abandonment, since the child had not been abandoned. It was Mary's responsibility to arrange care for the child in the first place, and the care she arranged had been systematically starving the baby. Still, the adoptive mother placed her trust in Mary to see to it that the baby was being taken care of while she figured out what to do-- she believed that Mary couldn't have known what was being done by the caretaker, and trusted that, now that she knew, Mary would see to it the child was protected in the interim. Which Mary did by kidnapping her and smuggling her into the U.S. herself, and then lying about her whereabouts to the parents. The parents were frantic enough to find their baby that they hired a private investigator. Does that sound like a family who was prepared to cold-heartedly abandon this child?

If you want the facts in this case (not just the party line) do check in with www.guatadopt.com regularly.

very useful info, thanks

My family is watching this closely as well!

April 24, 2007
Adoption Service Providers Banned
The USCIS in Guatemala has issued the below statement about adoption service providers being banned by the embassy.

To Members of the Guatemalan Adoption Community:

Please be advised that the following individuals have been banned from any involvement with any aspect of the I-600, Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative, process by the USCIS Guatemala Office:

1. Mary Bridget Bonn
2. Monica Janeth Ruiz Gonzalez de Casta