Adoption By Choice Facing Lawsuit From 18 Couples

Eighteen couples are suing a Calgary adoption agency after it announced that it would be closing permanently at the end of the month.

Adoption By Choice Ltd. (ABC) allegedly breached its contract with clients and misused thousands of dollars, according to the Adoption By Choice lawsuit. The plaintiffs were in the midst of the adoption process with ABC when it announced its impending closure.

Each couple reportedly paid the agency approximately $10,000 to pursue adoption. However, the process was not carried out, and the money was allegedly not placed into a trust account as promised.

“ABC has failed to provide any, or any proper detailed, accounting for the Trust Funds,” the Adoption By Choice lawsuit states. “None of the plaintiffs have received a refund of any of the trust funds.”

The plaintiffs are seeking a refund of the money they paid the agency plus $200,000 for additional damages.

ABC’s former executive director Ramone Kindrat and her husband are also named as defendants in the Adoption By Choice lawsuit. Three others who are listed as directors of the adoption agency are also named as defendants.

Ramone reportedly faces one charge of fraud over allegations she impersonated another ABC employee to recruit additional clients. The alleged fraud reportedly occurred in July 2018, but Ramone was not charged until December 2019.

“The criminal allegations were known, or ought to have been known, to each of the other individual defendants in their role as directors of ABC,” the Adoption By Choice lawsuit reportedly claims.

Ramone, who also operated a business offering private counseling to adoptive parents, allegedly impersonated an employee named Nedra Huffey. Huffey told CBC News that she had worked for ABC as a registered social worker specializing in international adoptions for more than four years.

Huffey says that she learned in January 2019 that Ramone had altered a counselling client’s receipt to replace Ramone’s name with Huffey’s name in order to allow the client to file an insurance claim for the counselling session.

Ramone also allegedly sent a copy of Huffey’s master’s degree in social work to the client and passed it off as her own.

“I received a message from an extended health company who wanted to speak to me about some counselling services for a specific person,” Huffey told CBC reporters. “But I’d never provided any counselling services personally or professionally. I didn’t know who that person was, so that was pretty alarming.”

Huffey says she emailed Ramone about the suspected identity theft, but Ramone allegedly denied it.

“It was frightening and very stressful,” Huffey said. “I often reported directly to her, so it took a while to think through what to do.”

Last summer, Huffey filed a complaint about Ramone’s alleged identity theft with the Alberta College of Social Workers. Ramone continued to be involved with ABC’s operations, and by October 2019, Huffey said she was too uncomfortable to continue working under Ramone and quit her job at ABC.

“I felt that if she had been willing to treat one of her employees as she did with me and one of her counselling clients as well, the way she had with the fraud issue, then there’s likely more to be concerned about,” Huffey said.

“I just didn’t have that confidence or trust that her leadership would be good for the agency or the adoptive families we were working with.”

Huffey reported Ramone’s conduct to the Calgary Police Service, and Ramone was charged with fraud on Dec. 17, 2019.

ABC had been in operation for more than three decades before it closed its doors in May. The agency blamed its closure on the decreasing number of birth parents making adoption plans. According to the Adoption By Choice lawsuit, approximately 90 Alberta families are affected by ABC’s closure.

Couples who were counting on ABC’s services are angry about Ramone’s criminal charge and the abrupt closure of the agency. One couple told CBC News that they paid ABC about $10,000 for the adoption process and are concerned that it is too late for them to begin the process again.

The couple claims that they don’t know if they will ever get their money back for the adoption process that went nowhere.

“We understood it was supposed to be kept in a trust,” one prospective adoptive parent said. “The money shouldn’t be gone. That money should be returned to the families. We have no idea what’s going to happen.

Ramone has said that prospective adoptive parents sign a document indicating that fees paid for services are non-refundable.

“Unfortunately if you’ve only been on the list for a year, you’re going to feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve lost all those funds,” Ramone said. “But those funds were to keep the operations going. There’s no breach of contracts. Anything we owe anybody is being paid.”

In Alberta last year, there were reportedly 166 private adoptions and 44 licensed adoptions.

What do you think about the Adoption By Choice lawsuit? Should the prospective parents get their money back from the adoption agency? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!

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