State: ‘Greed,’ not kids, drove adoption agency

Client broke no laws, her lawyer says

A Little Rock husband and wife turned their now-defunct Arkansas adoption agency into a “money-making machine” fueled by “filthy greed” rather than a desire to find good homes for children, a state attorney told a Pulaski County jury on Monday.

The reckless spending of owner Ed Webb and his now ex-wife, Donna Gail Hight, 45, caused “chronic” money problems that turned toxic in 2007 for Adoption Advantage when the Little Rock-based agency began having problems meeting payroll, Assistant Attorney General Cathi Compton told the eight women and four men hearing evidence in the state’s consumer protection lawsuit against Hight, 45.

As a result, the couple turned the company’s focus away from completing successful adoptions and toward earning more money by bringing in additional prospective parents, who were charged $23,000 to $36,000, Compton said in opening statements at the week-long trial. Those clients paid the money out with no guarantee of receiving a child and no real chance to get their money back if the process was unsuccessful, she said.

Webb was more concerned about whether those prospective parents were paid up than their suitability to adopt a child, Compton told jurors, questioning the propriety of Webb and Hight adopting a daughter even as they had qualified parents waiting.

Clients frequently got more excuses than answers from the agency when they inquired about the status of their case, Compton said. Webb claimed to operate the agency on Christian principles but was known to bully clients with Scripture when they questioned him about his operation, she said.

Webb and Adoption Advantage were found in default by Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce in June after they didn’t respond to the lawsuit filed in December 2010. Webb’s current whereabouts are unknown, and court filings indicate he might have left the country for Hong Kong, Thailand or Australia. Authorities were able to serve him with the suit at a Branson motel in August 2011. His law license was suspended on a technical violation in November 2010.

Webb closed the agency in March 2009 and surrendered his operational license at a hearing with state regulators seeking to have that license revoked. The attorney general’s office sued Webb, Hight and the company almost two years later, claiming violations of the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

If jurors find wrongdoing by Hight, the judge will assess fines, which can be up to $10,000 per violation, at a separate proceeding. Proceedings resume at 9 a.m. today.

Tennessee records show that as Donna Gail Webb, Hight is affiliated with Germantown-based adoption agency, All For You Adoption and Family Services LLC.

In her opening statement to jurors, Hight’s attorney, Marsha Barnes, warned jurors they would hear angry accusations against the company from former clients but they won’t see any proof that Hight broke the law.

She said adoption is fraught with “primal” emotions, with agency operators frequently caught between the impatient parents eager to raise a child after years of infertility and the passing whims of drug-addicted birth mothers who can disrupt the process at any moment.

Hight, trained as a nurse, held the company to the letter of the law, Barnes said, insisting that prospective parents and birth mothers be treated with the utmost respect. Following the law, Adoption Advantage never guaranteed any client would get a child, she said, only that the company would keep trying to match parents with a birth mother.

Barnes disputed accusations that Hight had much say in how the company operated. The only authority Hight had over operations was what Webb allowed her, Barnes said in her opening. She told jurors that Webb fired his wife in 2008 when she left him before ending their marriage. She described Webb as a “Jekyll and Hyde” with his wife and his workers.

Jacklyn Potter, 55, a former employee on trial with Hight, is accused of helping Webb pocket the payments from one client. Her attorney, Paul Schmidt, told jurors his client is a victim of Webb’s whom the state has made a scapegoat since authorities haven’t been able to bring Webb to court.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/23/2013

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