Reams and reams of copy relate the level of the rampant ineptness and corruption of Louisiana’s political structure but none so vividly illustrates that sad observation that to accurately point out this state has more restrictive laws to govern flower arrangers and hair braiders than protective measures to prevent literal baby-selling and foster care abuse.
Documented cases of pregnant women brokering their unborn babies to multiple sets of prospective parents with the winner being determined by who was willing to pay the highest price have been hand-delivered to legislators who in 2022 still barely managed, by a razor-thin 7-6 committee vote, moved to pass a bill designed to prevent birth mothers from intentionally lying to collect living expenses and other benefits from more than one set of prospective adoptive parents. Once out of committee, it passed the full House by a 64-36 vote, raising the question of who were the 36 who voted no on such a bill?
Will, LouisianaVoice is just the place to find that information. For that full House vote, GO HERE.
The Senate was a tad more level-headed about the issue, with 32 votes in favor, but no votes in opposition. Five senators, however, did take a walk and did not vote. To see the Senate vote, GO HERE.
Yet, here we are, four years later and the Department of Children and Family Services has been hit with a thunderbolt in the form of the State of Louisiana Child Ombudsman – 2025 Annual Report of Louisiana Child Ombudsman Kathleen Stewart Richey that takes DCFS to task for shortcomings, records destruction, misinformation, sibling separations and other failures.
Richey, the first juvenile judge in East Baton Rouge Parish, is a passionate proponent of child welfare and safety. She was instrumental in establishing the Capital Area Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Program. Over her 24-year judicial career, she received several honors and appointments, including Louisiana CASA Judge of the Year in 1997.
Her report on DCFS comes at a sensitive time with the national attention being given to sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and the myriad prominent names associated with his activities.
And despite that 2022 legislation designed to tighten restriction on birth mothers’ adoption schemes, shady attorneys and adoption agents continue to operate virtually unchecked – unlike flower arrangers and hair braiders, who must comply with strict standards in order to be licensed in Louisiana.
Louisiana, of course, does not hold franchise rights on adoption scams.
The most notorious adoption scammer was a woman named Gloria Tann, who, as director of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, ran a lucrative child-kidnapping and adoption ring. By literally kidnapping newborns (only white children) from hospital nurseries for more than two decades, she managed to abduct more than 5,000 babies in the 1930s and 1940s, making approximately a million dollars ($11 million in today’s dollars) in the process.
She grabbed two brothers off a back porch as their mother slept inside. Perhaps as an inspiration to Korean black marketers, a favorite ploy was to have a nurse, or someone dressed as a nurse, tell a new mother that her newborn had died when it had not and Tann would adopt the baby out, making a profit on the transaction.
On one occasion, Tann, driving her large black Packard, pulled up alongside six siblings and asked if they wanted to go for a ride. The impoverished children had never seen a car before. Tann had been tipped off that the children’s mother was in the hospital, so she knew they were home alone. Those children were not adopted out immediately. They stayed at the Home Society for three months where they were exploited as free labor, changing babies’ diapers and performing other chores. They were eventually adopted out to a family in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Tann adopted children out to each of the forty-eight states in the Continental United States to such luminaries as Pearl Buck, actors Smiley Burnette, June Allyson and Dick Powell, Joan Crawford (twins), Lana Turner and New York Governor Herbert Lehman.
Children who proved more difficult to adopt out were turned over to so-called baby farmers, generally uneducated middle-aged women. Some of the baby farmers insisted on payment up front and once it was paid, there was little incentive to care for the children. Many baby farmers killed children with some even taking out life insurance on them before killing them by scalding water or by dashing their heads against walls.
It was the ugliest side of child exploitation.
Tann died of uterine cancer on September 15, 1950, just two days after Tennessee Gov. Gordon Browning launched an investigation into the society after receiving reports that the agency was selling children for profit. The state eventually sued Tann’s estate. The case was settled for $82,000 and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was shut down that same year.
The demise of the society, however, did not mean the end of baby brokering. Far from it. Unscrupulous lawyers, adoption agencies and scamming mothers continue to milk the system by taking advantage of eager couples willing and able to pay exorbitant fees in hopes of becoming adoptive parents–especially in Louisiana, which has some of the weakest laws governing adoptions in the nation.
The institutions of adoption, fostering and child protective services represent the unholiest of unholy trinities that prop up the unmerciful trafficking of children. As repulsive as baby-selling by unprincipled adoption agencies may be, a worse human tragedy oftentimes begins in the well-meaning but inefficient efforts of child protective agencies in states across the landscape and ends in the sordid activity of child trafficking.
Known in some states as the department of family and children services, child protective services, or some other innocuous identity, they sometimes appear to intentionally wrecking lives as they blunder their way to bureaucratic incompetence, snatching children from a willing grandmother, in one case, and sending them halfway across the country, for example, to live with a father whose occupation was an adult entertainer.
Often, it is the ineptitude of these well-meaning agencies that perpetuates the flow from foster care to trafficking. They use their personnel and financial advantages to overwhelm financially strapped parents who find themselves at the mercy of courts heavily-weighted in favor of the cold bureaucracy that is totally devoid of compassion and empathy. Occasionally, fraud itself creeps into the equation with caseworkers withholding or destroying or simply fabricating evidence. That’s because charges against parents are taken seriously while charges against caseworkers are, often as not, ignored because caseworkers and their agencies can – and do – hide behind strict confidentiality laws.
The National Foster Youth Institute in 2024 estimated that 60 percent of child sex trafficking victims had been in foster care or another part of the child welfare system at some point in their young lives. Human trafficking rings often zero in on those they consider the most vulnerable, including those previously or currently in foster care.
With nearly 400,000 children in foster care with 20,000 older youth transitioning out each year because of age. Generally, foster children “age out” at eighteen, abruptly losing their support system. These are particularly vulnerable, subject to exploitation.
In Louisiana, there were places like Arcadia in Bienville Parish and Longstreet in DeSoto Parish. Those were the locations of two homes for so-called delinquent boys (Longstreet) and girls (Arcadia). Both homes were run by an Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher names Mack Ford and both were named New Bethany.
Ford operated his homes, where survivors have related horror stories of beatings, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, for years. The state made a couple of halfhearted attempts to shut the homes down but Ford always invoked the separation of church and state doctrine and the state backed down, leaving scores of children defenseless and, as it turned out, hopeless.
Yet, the legislature and attorney general’s office failed time after time to protect those children and now Richey’s report tells us there has been little improvement in the protection of children.
And to assign the bulk of fault for this travesty, legislators need only peer deeply into their mirrors.
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https://louisianavoice.com/2022/08/10/dcfs-yanks-firstborn-from-monroe-couple-after-accusation-mom-refused-to-take-dangerous-medication-while-pregnant/
“a favorite ploy was to have a nurse, or someone dressed as a nurse, tell a new mother that her newborn had died when it had not and Tann would adopt the baby out, making a profit on the transaction.”
Several years ago, a close friend, who is now deceased, was contacted by a person who said that he was her child and had found her through a popular DNA testing site. My friend, S, told us that she had a stillborn child during her first marriage, but never told anyone about it. She said her first husband was in the Army and was in Vietnam while she was pregnant and living in Texas. Her in-laws, who didn’t like her, were supposed to be helping her during that time. They told her that her child was stillborn and she never saw her baby. The marriage later ended in divorce and S went on the remarry and have two more children, who we know. Over 40 years later, the man contacted her, and came to visit. There was no question that he was her child, in looks and personality. Her very adult children had a tough time emotionally, with a new older brother. The man neither wanted anything from S other than to get to know her, nor did he want to be estranged from his adoptive parents. He said he’d had a great childhood, and loved his parents, who always told him he was adopted (chosen), and had encouraged him to seek his birth parents.
S’s first husband and his parents were all deceased and there were no records of her first child’s birth/death. The adoption papers listed the birth parents as unknown. A lot of people accused S of making up the story and assumed that she had simply given up an unwanted baby. S and the three children all stayed in contact and the oldest, surprise son, came for his mother’s funeral when she passed away. The three children introduced one another as their siblings. People wondered publicly how such a thing could happen – now we know.
Tom, I don’t know where to start. As a 40+ year retired DCFS person, my heart hurts and I’m angry at what has happened with DCFS. It was never flawless, but it was at least thought of as a protector of children. We had good working relationships with communities, schools, organizations aiming to support families and children, but that has gone by the wayside. I saw it happening before I retired in 2017. There were not enough qualified, trained people to do that job. Rules and policy went by the wayside. It was more important to get cases closed than to do the work needed to ensure the safety of these children.
As a passionate DCFS supporter, I am appalled at what has happened. I have sent emails to Secretaries, to legislators, to the governor, in an attempt to help them understand the complexity of Child Welfare and to employ those with Child Welfare experience to come in and help get DCFS back on its feet. When Sen. Barrow proposed her bill to abolish DCFS, I emailed and called with my concerns. At one point, Sen. Barrow set up a Zoom meeting for those of us who were retired or worked for DCFS to discuss the concerns we had about her wanting to abolish DCFS. It was set but did not happen. On approximately 4-15-26. Sen. McMath proposed his bill. SB 468, to divide up DCFS between other agencies. I was appalled at the lack of understanding of Child Welfare. Let me state clearly, I am not upset that they are concerned about what is happening or not happening in DCFS, I am appalled. But I was appalled at their callousness of just doing away with an agency that has been in existence for years and has protected thousands of children. Any child death is unacceptable, especially when DCFS is or has been involved. One is too many. But hold us accountable for those and help us do better. Give us the resources we need to do what we are called to do.
I sent an email to Sen. McMath and all the legislators expressing my concerns with this bill and suggested that people with Child Welfare experience be involved in whatever plan was made for DCFS. DCFS is not a business and it is not law enforcement. We are a social work/social service agency whose mission it is to keep children safe and families together if at all possible. I received no response. Then Senator Jackson-Andrews sent me information about a Health and Welfare Committee meeting that was to be held on April 22nd regarding McMath’s SB 468. I was told I could testify and I thanked her for that opportunity. I was ready. After reading in the news that Gov. Landry was upset over this proposal, was not in favor of abolishing DCFS (I was thrilled that he seemed to see the importance of DCFS), and no one had talked to him about this bill, I was encouraged. But then the agenda for 4-22-2026 did not show the bill up for discussion and neither did 4-29-2026. Yet I could not get a confirmation from anyone that the bill was still on or not. Just this week, I talked with Sen. McMath’s office and was told that the bill is pending and they are trying to work something out. In the meantime, I got an email from Sen. Jackson-Andrews about a hearing that was held on 4-28-2026 regarding the Ombudsman oversight of DCFS and all the problems they discussed. I also reviewed the Legislative Audit which reported deficiencies, the same ones I had been calling out and the same ones the Ombudsman bill discussed. I have known of Judge Richey from my experience with the agency and know her to be passionate about kids and keeping them safe. For her to be involved is great. At the same time, those of us who have worked in the field, investigating, removing, returning, removing again, placing in foster homes, working with families whose children remain in the home, and then being in a supervisory/management position within that Agency should be involved in this. We have not been. There are many of us out here who would be proud to be a part. To abolish or divide DCFS between those who have no Child Welfare experience is scary. DCFS has flaws, but they can be fixed. You don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
So I am here again today, trying to figure out how to impress upon those in control that they need to understand DCFS, Child Welfare, Child Protection, the federal and state laws that govern the policy. I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. But that’s what I do when I am passionate about protecting children, doing it to the best of our ability with honesty and integrity, and by the law and policy.
In the hearing where Sen. McMath testified for his bill, he likened DCFS to a broken car and when the car is broken, you fix it. He is correct. You FIX it!! You do not tow it immediately to the junk yard. You do not take it to a plumber, You take it to someone who knows cars, an experienced mechanic. That is what needs to be done in the efforts to get DCFS back up on its feet and running. Bring in experienced, educated, trained child welfare providers who know what it takes. And, there must be enough people to do the job, who are trained in the policy, and are committed to following that policy.
I know this is ridiculously long, but I cannot help myself.
Thank you for taking the time to post and read this.
Marsha, thank you for caring so much and working so hard to try to compel a positive outcome for DCFS. I don’t know why they can’t form an ad hoc committee to bring all of you with experience and care together to make recommendations. It seems so logical. I wish you luck and I hope something can be done. The failures are so dismal and so many children are harmed, and yet I know there are many who care as deeply as you do.