Texas woman fined for role in RI baby sale
Texas woman fined for role in RI baby sale
AUCKLAND (AP): A Texas woman desperate to be a mother was
fined US$31,800 (NZ$60,000) Friday for her role in an
international baby trafficking case.
Charli Shirley Connelly, 35, of Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty
to four fraud charges relating to the baby's birth certificate
and travel documents to the United States.
In the High Court, Justice Silvia Cartwright fined Connelly
$8,000 on each charge and ordered that half the money be paid
into a trust fund for the child.
Two other people have already been sentenced for their role in
the baby smuggling scheme.
In April, Indonesian-born Erica Henrietta Langenbach, 52, was
sentenced to two and one-half years jail for allegedly
masterminding the plan. She was deported from New Zealand
Thursday. Australian Dr. Guiseppe Barbaro was fined $10,000 for
signing falsified birth documents.
The court heard that in July 1997, Langenbach brought a baby
to New Zealand and gave it to Connelly in an Auckland hotel room.
The baby was believed to have been bought in Indonesia for around
$120. The women attempted an elaborate ruse to convince hotel
staff that Connelly was pregnant and that the baby had been born
in the motel room.
"(Langenbach) ran around asking for towels, she gave false
information; she was the director of her own production,"
Connelly's lawyer, Deborah Hollings said Friday.
Hotel staff became suspicious when there was no evidence of
the birth. Hollings said Connelly was desperate to have a baby
and had been manipulated by Langenbach.
"She was psychologically blinded by her own intense desire to
give an infant a new home and a better life," Hollings said.
Connelly had believed the baby had been legally obtained, but
was so besotted with the baby that she went along with
Langenbach's false-birth hoax at the hotel.
Noting Connelly was extremely unlikely to ever be allowed to
adopt a baby legally, the judge said a prison sentence was
inappropriate.
Cartwright said authorities will never know if the baby was
unwanted by its parents, but that now the child will never know
its family or ethnicity. Outside the court, Connelly's U.S.
lawyer Thomas George said she still wanted to adopt a baby.
In a suburban Auckland home, 11-month-old "Baby Paul," named
after the police officer who headed the case, is flashing his new
teeth and learning to walk, carers said.
Despite an investigation spanning four countries authorities
still do not know who his parents are.
"He is... well-loved... but he is a little man from
nowhere," Childrens' Service manager Julie Sutherland said.