Former Little Rock adoption agency operator Donna Gail Hight told a Pulaski County jury on Thursday she never cheated any client and never wanted to.
She never promised any client would successfully adopt or guaranteed they would get a child within a specific time frame, despitethose accusations against her this week at trial, Hight said.
Her goal was to make families, and any wrongdoing at the now-defunct Adoption Advantage is solely the doing of her ex-husband, company owner Ed Webb, Hight said on the fourth day of testimony in the Arkansas attorney general’s deceptive-trade-practices lawsuit against her and a co-defendant.
“I wanted to help them make their dreams of having a family a reality,” said Hight, who now operates an adoption agency in Germantown, Tenn. “I never promised any family I would place a baby in their home. I promised we would work as hard as we could to place a child in their home as soon as possible.”
Hight, 46, who testified for about five hours, is accused of cheating some clients at the agency, which closed in 2009, after Webb, a lawyer, surrendered his adoption license under pressure from state regulators examining the company’s operations.
State attorneys claim Hight was an owner of the business, which would make her as responsible as Webb, whose full name is Norris Edward Webb, for any wrongdoing. If she’s found liable by jurors, Hight can be fined up to $10,000 per violation as determined by the judge in a separate proceeding. Closing arguments are set for 9:30 a.m. today before Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce.
Hight testified that Webb was always the ultimate authority on agency operations. She said she initially claimed co-ownership in the company and could sign company checks until 2006 when Webb stripped her of all authority. He then fired her in 2008 after she left him, Hight said. Any representation that she was an owner after 2006 was done without her knowledge or permission, she said.
Questioned by her attorney Marcia Barnes, Hight described a volatile 22-year-long marriage to Webb in which he dominated her with physical and mental abuse. The couple had six children and adopted a seventh, in part because she was inspired by the parents who had adopted her, Hight said.
Responding to questions about the propriety of that adoption, she acknowledged the couple didn’t follow their agency’s usual procedures, explaining that no one else was interested in taking a child whose mother was using methamphetamine during her pregnancy.
Questioned by Assistant Attorney General Cathi Compton about the motivations of the accusers, an assortment of former agency employees and ex-clients, Hight said they had turned her into a scapegoat for Webb, whose whereabouts are unknown. He was found in default after failing to respond to the 2010 lawsuit.
“Ed is not here for them to blame and to take responsibility. I am here and I’m getting it,” she testified. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I did a very good job.”
She pointed to the 2009 state inquiry, conducted by a branch of the state Department of Human Services, as proof she had no role in the company’s operations. Regulators would have gone after her too, if she was as involvedwith the company as she’s been accused of being, Hight said.
The accusations against her by former clients are more about emotion than fact because they are upset that the adoption process was unsuccessful for them, Hight said. Some of them lied about her, she testified, particularly Gail Fuller of Romance, who said Hight had bragged that Adoption Advantage had been deliberately constructed to protect Hight from lawsuit liability.
Hight also disputed whether any of the 18 former clients who testified this week - including one who made an overnight drive from Iowa to testify for about 20 minutes - had been deceived by the company. Those witnesses together had spent $404,249 but never got to adopt through the agency, Compton said, challenging Hight to account for the money. Hightresponded that state lawyers have the company records that can show the funds were used appropriately.
An insight into Adoption Advantage finances came during the testimony of Hight’s co-defendant, Jacklyn Fuller, 55, of Jacksonville. Fuller testified she worked for the company about six months and admitted in part to the chief allegation against her, that she allowed Webb to use her bank account in November 2008 to collect client Iowan Tom Pennington’s $28,800 payment to adopt a child.
Webb told her he needed the money to keep the company afloat, but if the money went into the agency’s bank account, it would be completely consumed paying the bills, she said. Webb complained the business was losing money because family members and employees had been stealing from the agency, she said.
Inspired by her work with birth mothers, Webb said she wanted to help save Adoption Advantage so she agreed tolet him use the account. She acknowledged knowing that Webb didn’t intend to use the funds on the Pennington family’s behalf. She said she didn’t know what happened to the money but she didn’t get any of it.
“I thought I was doing right. It didn’t feel right on some level,” she said. “I didn’t want the company to die. I wanted it to go on helping families.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/26/2013