THE ADOPTION SCAM
Beth Hawkins
Minneapolis City Pages
Published on May 23, 2007
MN
Reaching Arms International claimed to specialize in placing European
orphans. But prospective parents say they’ve been left heartbroken.
Chad and Julia Sandstrom had two biological children of their own,
but they wanted to adopt a third. Julia was drawn to the idea because
her father was adopted, while Chad thought it was a good way to avoid
contributing to the overpopulation problem.
Kris Drake Unlike many adoptive parents who have their hearts set on
an infant, the Sandstroms wanted an older orphan. "I wanted to give
a child a family," says Julia Sandstrom.
After family friends played host to an orphan visiting from Russia, the
couple knew their time had come. In January 2005, they went to a party
hosted by the local adoption agency their friends had used. Located in
New Hope, Reaching Arms International specialized in placing Eastern
European children. The Sandstroms came away impressed by the passion
of RAI’s founder, Nila Hilton, who had dedicated her life to working
with orphans.
Julia Sandstrom checked out other agencies on the internet, but
they liked the fact that Reaching Arms was just 30 miles from their
Stillwater home. "We could drive to do business there," she says. "It
felt more real and safe."
So in February 2005, the Sandstroms visited the office to meet their
caseworker and hear about Reaching Arms’ programs in Russia, Ukraine,
and Armenia. They chose Armenia. It was cheaper than Russia, and easier
than the Ukraine. The Sandstroms came through their home study with
flying colors and quickly won the Armenian government’s approval.
But then months came and went. The following January, their caseworker
told them the delay was because older children were harder to find. The
Sandstroms asked Reaching Arms to broaden its search to include any
healthy female children under the age of four.
In May 2006, they got news that a four-month-old girl had been
found. Because Eastern European orphans are at high risk for
retardation and fetal alcohol syndrome, the Sandstroms asked the
University of Minnesota’s International Adoption Clinic to look at
their prospective daughter’s case file. It offered precious little
information–the pictures were blurry and the only medical information
was that the baby was born 10 weeks premature.
The Sandstroms asked the caseworker for help getting more details. A
week later, Nila Hilton called. Hilton told Julia Sandstrom that
the clinic had misdiagnosed other orphans and could not be trusted,
the Sandstroms say. Hilton also warned that Armenian officials would
be offended if the Sandstroms turned down the baby.
"Mrs. Hilton’s telling us we have to make a decision right away,"
Julia recalls. "Meanwhile, the U is saying this could potentially be
a very serious medical issue."
The couple stood their ground, and a checkup with an outside doctor
and new pictures proved the girl healthy. Then the family got another
shock: They had been told the fees for the Armenian part of the
process would come to $8,000, but now Hilton said they’d have to pay
$17,000-$20,000. When the Sandstroms questioned her about the increase,
Hilton said adopting an infant was more expensive than an older child.
"At that point, we had no bargaining room," says Julia. "Her room
was ready, her clothes had been purchased, her picture had been shown
to family."
Two weeks before the Sandstroms were supposed to go to Armenia, their
caseworker called and said she’d left the agency. Julia couldn’t get
Hilton on the phone, so she drove to Reaching Arms. The building had
been put up for sale.
"It looked like they were ready to cut and run," she says. "We were
left high and dry."
In 1991, Nila and Bill Neumiller went on a church trip to Russia and
toured a number of orphanages.
"She came back a changed person," recalls Bill Neumiller (now her
ex-husband). "She went to minister to orphans, and saw the conditions
in which they lived and saw the hollowness in their eyes. And it
really affected her."
Both Neumillers were deeply religious, and both were sure Nila was
being called to save orphans. Back in Minnesota, she quit her job,
enrolled in ministerial training at her Charismatic church, and
started looking into opening an adoption agency.
The Neumillers installed a drafting table and a second phone line
in their basement, and Nila got to work. To get a state license to
place children, she would need to be supervised by a licensed social
worker. She met one at lunch a few days later, and the woman agreed
to help for free. Nila Neumiller also stumbled upon several Russian
immigrants who had good contacts back in the home country.
In 1995, Reaching Arms placed its first orphans, three Russian
sisters. Before long, the agency was placing 60 children a year. After
homes had been found for 100 children, the Neumillers organized a
reunion picnic. The memory still makes Bill Neumiller choke up.
"We noticed how many of the children came from the same orphanage
and knew each other," he says. "They ran up and hugged each other
and then pointed out their parents."
Over the next decade, the agency placed some 800 to 900 children,
Bill Neumiller says. Its newsletters were peppered with stories of
families moved to accept not chubby-cheeked infants, but children
who are notoriously difficult to place: older kids, children with
serious disabilities, and groups of siblings.
"Nila was the visionary," Bill Neumiller says. "She would see things
and I would say, ‘What do you see?’ And then we would work together
to establish bricks and mortar."
Kris Drake Her passion was contagious, agrees a former employee who
asked to be identified by only her first name, Angela.
"She made a lot of dreams come true for a lot of people," Angela
says. "Plenty of times she would put her own money, her reputation,
and her energy on the line to get into a country. I think it was
because she had a blind faith she would get into these countries."
In 1996, the Neumillers adopted a fifth child, a six-year-old Russian
girl. Ten months earlier, Reaching Arms had placed the girl with a
New Jersey family who now wanted to send the girl back.
"Our hearts were broken," Bill Neumiller says. "Because of this
situation, we didn’t have to choose, we just had to react."
In 1999, Reaching Arms opened an orphanage in Ukraine. Friends from
the Neumillers’ church sent blankets, clothes, and toys and then
traveled to the Ukrainian home. Back home, Nila Neumiller spoke
frequently about her work to Rotary clubs and other groups.
"The word ‘charisma’ always comes up with her," Angela says. "Nila
naturally attracted people who are energetic and fun-loving, who like
to take life seriously, people who don’t just blend in."
But she had no patience for the details, according to Angela
and another former employee interviewed as a part of the state
investigations. According to their sworn statements, and to City Pages’
interview with Bill Neumiller, both donations and fees paid by adopting
families got deposited into a single bank account. Families’ payments
for future services paid for the most pressing bills, regardless of
which adoption they were for.
It was a constant struggle to pay the bills, Bill Neumiller
says. "There was hardly any money to begin with," he says. Add to
that the difficulty of working in many countries. "If the process
wasn’t changing, the government was changing."
"I think Nila tried to hold everything together by a very thin thread,"
Angela adds. "I think her vision was strong and good and I think she
got misdirected by her own weaknesses."
Today, Reaching Arms is out of business. In March, the state Department
of Human Services, which oversees adoption agencies, revoked its
license after finding dozens of violations of Minnesota’s adoption
rules. At the state attorney general’s request, the agency’s books
are undergoing a court-ordered audit. According to investigations
conducted by both state agencies, Reaching Arms asked for tens of
thousands of dollars from families even before determining they were
qualified to adopt. Human Services investigators also concluded that
the agency charged fees that weren’t disclosed up front, increased
fees months into the adoptions, falsified documents, and threatened
to halt the adoptions of families who complained.
According to affidavits on file in the attorney general’s case, several
families were ordered to undergo spiritual and psychological counseling
with the husband of the agency’s director and founder, who is not
a licensed psychologist. One family was given a contract to adopt
a child from Kenya, even though Reaching Arms was not authorized to
perform Kenyan adoptions. Another family had its credit card charged
without its knowledge.
Some of the families eventually managed to adopt the children they
were offered, albeit through different agencies and at the cost
of additional tens of thousands of dollars. Others never got their
children.
Nila Hilton–she has been divorced and remarried and was running
Reaching Arms with her new husband, Tom Hilton, before it was
shut down–declined to be interviewed for this story, as did
Tom Hilton. Their attorney didn’t return several calls requesting
comment. The Hiltons did provide a written statement saying the agency
has been wrongly portrayed.
"Part of the reason [Reaching Arms] has remained silent to this point
is to protect the confidentiality of our clients," the statement
reads. "If we were free to openly discuss the facts involved we
strongly believe the negative publicity would not have painted such
an ugly picture."
Ann and Andrew Spurbeck live in a yellow farmhouse on top of a ridge
overlooking a thick swath of topsoil that’s rotated between corn and
soybeans. There’s a picturesque horse farm across the road, complete
with whitewashed split-rail fences, and not far beyond that, pristine
Lake Waconia.
The couple’s three biological children, ages 11, 13, and 15, sweep
in and out of French doors that lead onto a wide wrap-around porch,
trailed by a gaggle of friends. They’re chasing the dog, which is
fetching muddy golf balls knocked into the yard from a golf course
on the other side of the ridge.
The Spurbecks don’t have as much money as the spread suggests. Ann is a
stay-at-home mom and Andrew works in tech support at SuperValu. They’re
frugal, and the land under the house has been in the family for years.
Still, they feel blessed. And that sense of gratitude is why they
wanted to bring an orphan to live in the sprawling, sunny farmhouse.
In February 2005, the Spurbecks began checking into several adoption
agencies. Reaching Arms placed the kind of kids they wanted–Eastern
European children between the ages of four and seven–but it also
appealed to them for other, more spiritual reasons.
"They promoted themselves as a Christian and humanitarian agency,
and that meant a lot to me," Ann says.
Kris Drake So the couple borrowed $25,000 against their home equity
and began the complicated process. The Spurbecks spent six months
getting approved, but then a shakeup in the Ukrainian government
put a stop to all foreign adoptions. When the country finally began
allowing adoptions again 13 months later, the Spurbecks scrambled to
update their immigration documents.
Last fall, the Spurbecks were finally told to get ready. They went
to the Reaching Arms offices and paid $4,100 to cover their fees
and expenses in Ukraine. Nila Hilton took their check and left,
promising to wire it to Reaching Arms’ Ukrainian intermediary right
away, the Spurbecks say.
Their caseworker told them the money would pay for a number of expenses
in Ukraine, including the intermediary who would serve as their guide
and translator. The guide would first take them to the government
adoption bureau, where they would see pictures of available girls,
then to orphanages to meet the kids they were most interested in.
The caseworker told the Spurbecks to take their time deciding, Ann
recalls. They shouldn’t take on a child with whom they didn’t feel
a bond, and under no circumstances should they pay a bribe.
Ann had heard the same thing over and over from families who’d been
through the adoption process: You get a picture, or meet a child,
and you just know. The tens of thousands of dollars, the months of
forms and checklists and snafus recede, replaced by the certainty
that this child should join your family.
But when the Spurbecks arrived in Kyiv last December, they felt
like characters in a Kafka novel. For starters, their money never
arrived. At the state Department of Adoption, they were shown into a
bare room where three women sat at desks. A woman in her late 20s
showed them pictures of sibling groups, then of four individual
girls–the only orphans in the country eligible for adoption, she
insisted. The Spurbecks were told they had one hour to choose a child.
When the couple pressed to see more files, the woman jumped
up and grabbed a three-ring binder from the top of a filing
cabinet. She stabbed a finger at the photos and hissed, "Has cerebral
palsy. Invalid. Can’t eat. Can’t sit up." Then she looked up at the
couple and sneered: "You must not be ready to adopt if you cannot
make a decision."
Feeling like they had no choice, the Spurbecks agreed to meet the girl
the officials were pushing the hardest. A 12-hour train trip brought
them to Tourez, where the orphanage was located. An old coal-mining
city, it was desolate. When Ann asked to use a bathroom at the
orphanage, a cleaning lady led her to a tiny room that contained a
toilet with no seat. The tub was filled with brackish water and the
cleaning woman was washing clothes in it.
The Spurbecks had been told they’d see their prospective daughter as
part of a larger group of children, to keep her expectations down in
case the couple decided not to adopt her. Instead, the orphanage staff
brought a single girl into the office. "Daddy, Mommy," she cried,
jumping into Andrew’s lap and throwing her arms around his neck.
The Spurbecks stayed for several hours, waiting to feel a bond with
the girl, but it never materialized. As the Spurbecks were leaving,
the orphanage director told their translator they should give him
$600 cash and wire an additional $1,000 to his bank account if they
wanted to complete the adoption. They refused.
Back in Kyiv, the guide went back to the Department of Adoption and
argued for another chance. The officials claimed to be insulted, but
eventually said the Spurbecks could come back in 12 days and look at
more pictures. But Andrew was already almost out of vacation time,
and back home in Waconia, relatives were caring for their three
biological children with Christmas just days away.
They called Nila Hilton for guidance. But when they finally got
through to her, Ann says, Hilton didn’t offer any suggestions, just
told them she hoped they would choose a child. "She said, ‘Well,
I hope you can open your hearts to an orphan,’" Ann recalls.
When the Spurbecks arrived back home, Ann called Hilton and asked her
to return the $4,100 that was never sent to Ukraine. They arranged to
meet, but when the Spurbecks showed up at Reaching Arms, the lights
were off and the only person there was a secretary. "I said, ‘Do you
even know who we are?’" Ann recalls. The secretary was apologetic,
and looked shocked as the Spurbecks explained the reason for their
appointment.
The couple stopped for dinner on their way home. While they were
eating, Hilton called and accused Ann of abusing her staff. "She said,
‘I’m not going to take this verbal abuse from you,’" Ann recalls. "She
said I needed to deal with my emotional outbursts before we could
talk about returning the money." The Spurbecks never heard from
Hilton again.
"It’s taken a toll on us," Ann says. "I was imagining a little one,
you know?"
Kris Drake At their first meeting with Reaching Arms, Beth and Brad
Kantor were offered a baby boy from Guatemala, they say. The couple
hadn’t filled out a single form before Nila Hilton stuck her head
into the meeting and showed them a picture of a three-month-old boy.
They had two biological children and wanted another, but Beth wasn’t
anxious to go through another pregnancy. Besides, they liked the idea
of taking in a child that might not otherwise find a good home.
"The thought of children out there with no one, no parent to love them,
breaks my heart," Beth Kantor says. "That’s not the case in our family,
we find it so easy to love them."
By the summer of 2005, the Kantors finally had the money to begin
the adoption process. They wanted to adopt from Guatemala because
the children are relatively healthy, alcoholism rates are low,
and the money they sent to the country would go toward taking care
of orphans. Beth drove back to Reaching Arms with the completed
paperwork and a check for $15,300. They were told the baby would be
home by Christmas.
They quickly realized it wouldn’t be that simple. For the first month
after they signed the contract, the Kantors’ caseworker wouldn’t
return Beth’s calls. When the couple finally reached her, she blew up,
saying that they asked too many questions and needed to "stay in line."
Nila and Bill Neumiller had separated earlier in the year, and Nila
had remarried. Her new husband, Tom Hilton, started working at Reaching
Arms. In October 2005, the agency sent a letter to current and former
clients offering Tom Hilton’s counseling services.
"Families may continue to need counsel and support in dealing with
difficult issues long after the adoption," the letter stated, according
to the state licensing investigation. "You may be in relationship to
RAI through ways other than adoption. We welcome you and your family
to also benefit from [Tom Hilton’s] counsel."
Tom Hilton was a licensed drug and alcohol addiction counselor,
but not a psychologist. But Beth Kantor knew none of this when she
called Nila Hilton to complain about her calls not being returned. Tom
Hilton called Beth back and asked her to come in for a meeting. When
she got to the agency, Beth says, Tom Hilton grilled her.
"He asked about my sex life with my husband, my sexual history," she
says. "Did I believe in Jesus? Yes. Did I believe in the devil? I
said I had some problems with the devil. He said, ‘You’re going to
have problems with your adopted child if you don’t cast the devil
out of your family.’"
The devil’s hold on them was the reason she couldn’t get pregnant,
Tom Hilton continued. Beth didn’t bother setting him straight about
their biological kids. Instead, she tried to get out of the meeting
without upsetting him.
"We were repeatedly told that if we were difficult, they would
disrupt our adoption," Beth says. "We decided to lay low, to not ask
so many questions."
A few weeks later, Tom Hilton again told the Kantors to undergo
"mandatory spiritual counseling" with him, the couple says. Beth asked
if they could see their own minister or counselor. Tom Hilton replied
that the agency could put their adoption on hold if they didn’t come
to counseling.
One day, Beth went to Reaching Arms’ New Hope office to turn in some
paperwork. The caseworker needed her husband’s signature on several
different Guatemalan powers of attorney. Beth said she’d drive back
with the signed form, but the caseworker said not to bother, Beth
recalls. "She said, ‘Just hold it up against a window [and trace the
signature], that’s what I do.’"
In February, the Kantors received a form letter from Nila Hilton asking
for donations. Reaching Arms was on "the brink of ruin," she wrote,
because of "uncertainties that come with international adoptions."
Terrified, the couple hired an attorney, who advised them to
immediately terminate their contract with the agency. When they tried,
the Hiltons again threatened to stop their adoption, Beth says. This
time, the couple ignored the threat: They were already talking to
Reaching Arms’ Guatemalan agent, who agreed to take their paperwork
to another agency.
But Reaching Arms had one more surprise for the Kantors: The agency
withheld their home study and sent a letter to the Department of
Human Services saying the pair had refused to attend the mandatory
counseling sessions, Beth says. And because their tempers had been
called into question on the record, the Kantors’ second home study
was extremely thorough.
"We had to pay for a new home study and make sure it was ironclad,"
Beth says. "We had to spend extra time proving we didn’t have anger
issues."
It was another six months before their adopted son, who was then 17
months old, finally came home.
Rick Spaulding and Tinia Moulder thought it was strange that Reaching
Arms offered them a baby just days after they signed a contract with
the agency in November 2005.