An investigation by CBS News found that one of the alleged victims of an adoption agency was not even pregnant.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, an attorney and executive director of a North Texas adoption agency was arrested this past summer and accused of trying to buy Tarrant County jail inmates’ babies to sell on the black market.
Jody Hall, 68, was arrested and booked into the Hays County jail on July 23 and was charged with two counts of sale or purchase of a child.
Raynetta Harris, who is one of the inmates who received money from the adoption agency, admitted to CBS that she and several other inmates lied to the agency so they could continue to receive money into their jail commissary accounts, reported CBS News.
“Everybody was in there taking the money,” Harris said, reported CBS News.
“Act like you’re pregnant or whatever and she’ll just pay you the money.”
There was an inmate who was pregnant, but who ultimately decided to keep the child, despite receiving money from Hall.
Hall’s attorney, Frank Sellers, said that Jody is being targeted and that there was nothing unethical with her work, CBS News reported.
“The money given to these women was not to facilitate buying a child,” Sellers said.
“Jody is at a loss for why she is being targeted like this; she feels and we feel that she has not done a single thing illegal.”
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s office, which conducted the investigation, stated that the payments did cross a legal line, reported CBS News.
“The Tarrant County Jail incurs all necessary pregnancy-related and living expenses of their inmates” and “female inmates are provided all hygiene products,” the Sheriff’s Office said, CBS News reported.
“The physician can prescribe additional food portions to be offered and pregnant inmates are provided a morning and evening snack,” it continued.