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When the bough breaks: Amanda Kolle still hoping to get her son back
Wednesday, December 15, 1999 By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Sixteen months ago, a family friend handed Amanda's Kolle's baby to a childless Beaver County couple and told them they could keep him.
The friend, Norma Kiefer, had been helping to care for the child, but Kolle says she never gave Kiefer permission to give away her baby, and so naturally, she demanded that he be returned.
The Beaver County couple, Deborah and Ronald DeCostro, refused. They persuaded a Beaver County judge to terminate her parental rights to the baby, so they could adopt him without her permission.
Kolle has appealed the ruling. But she hasn't seen her baby since Kiefer gave him away. The DeCostros have watched his first steps, heard his first words, given him his first birthday gifts.
"Look at the gross facts," said Witold Walczak, director of the Greater Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has helped to represent Kolle. "It is a no-brainer. This can't happen."
But it did happen in Beaver County, where four terminations of parents' rights to their children have been reversed in the past two years because proper procedures weren't followed.
In one of those cases, an appeals judge observed that the attorney representing the children had failed her duty by not filing a brief. The attorney's name: Deborah DeCostro.
The ACLU filed suit against Beaver County late last year, decrying its termination and adoption practices as unfair and unconstitutional. As part of a negotiated settlement, Beaver County instituted new court rules protecting the rights of parents and children.
His experience in that case convinced Walczak that what happened to Kolle occurred partly because of "the lack of careful attention to constitutional and statutorily required due process on a systemic basis in Beaver County."
Kolle can't believe that with the ACLU and two private lawyers on her side, she still hasn't been able to get her baby back.
"My head has been aching for 16 months," she said.
A rough beginning
Kolle was a single, 19-year-old living in Carnegie when she gave birth to a son, William Christopher Kolle, on March 21, 1998. It was a painful, Caesarian delivery, complicated later by infection.
Kolle had other problems as well. She had suffered depression for several years, and she used alcohol and drugs.
At first, her mother helped her care for William. Then, acting on advice from an aunt, Kolle sought the aid of family friend Kiefer. Kolle took William to Kiefer's house in Carnegie on April 7, and the following day, after arguing with her father, Kolle moved in with Kiefer, too.
Kolle regarded Kiefer as an aunt and called her "Normie."
But Kiefer would later vilify Kolle in court, describing her as the worst possible mother. Kolle never touched baby William, Kiefer said. She worked, went out with friends, drank alcohol, even smoked marijuana, but never fed William, never changed his diaper, never cuddled him when he cried, Kiefer told the judge at Kolle's termination trial.
When a parent is that inadequate, the solution may be to call a child welfare agency, such as Allegheny County's Office of Children, Youth and Families, which can take custody of a child and try to retrain the parent. But no one called CYF, so Kolle never got any help or a chance to rehabilitate herself as a mother.
Kolle said she was not as negligent as Kiefer claimed, but admitted she may not have been an ideal mother. She was evaluated for depression in April and then, in July, was hospitalized for two weeks after attempting suicide.
After she was discharged, Kolle set up an apartment of her own, then went to Kiefer's house and demanded William. Kiefer refused to give Kolle her baby, and two days later, on Aug. 4, she handed William to the DeCostros, who had learned about the baby through a relative of Kiefer's.
Three days after they got him, the DeCostros filed notice of their intention to adopt William. In that document, both DeCostros signed an acknowledgment that the birth parents may revoke consent for adoption.
Still, when Kolle made it clear to the DeCostros' lawyer that she had never given consent and never intended to, the DeCostros refused to return William to her.
Instead, they asked a judge to terminate her parental rights.
A similar case
The DeCostros' behavior contrasts starkly with that of a Fayette County couple who found themselves in a strikingly similar situation.
The Fayette couple, Michael and Kim Long, immediately returned a 3-year-old girl they had received in the spring of 1998, after they learned her mother had not consented to adoption. Like the DeCostros, the Longs had received the child from a caretaker, who had told them that they could adopt her.
The Longs, who have declined to be interviewed, may have returned the child because they knew state law makes it difficult for anyone to take a child from an unwilling parent. It's almost never done, except by child welfare agencies like CYF, whose mission is to protect abused and neglected children.
Yet a judge permitted the DeCostros to keep William, even though Kolle's attorneys questioned the DeCostros' legal maneuvers.
One involved the way Kolle's parental rights were ended.
Involuntary termination of parents' rights -- the first step necessary before someone can adopt a child against a birth parent's wishes -- may be sought only in a few situations. A child welfare agency may request it when an abusive or neglectful parent fails to reform, and a divorced parent may seek it after remarrying in order for a new spouse to adopt stepchildren. Finally, people serving "in loco parentis," a legal term meaning in place of parents, may ask a court to involuntarily terminate the birth parents' rights.
Beaver County Judge Robert C. Reed decided the DeCostros were serving "in loco parentis" to William because they were taking care of him. But appellate courts have said people cannot acquire "in loco parentis" status against the will of birth parents who did not intend their children to be adopted.
If that were permitted, anybody who wanted to adopt could begin taking care of children whose parents appeared less than stellar and then claim they were "in loco parentis" and seek involuntary termination of the birth parents' rights.
Another problem in the case was the issue of custody. When the DeCostros got William, they did not have legal custody. Reed solved that problem by giving the DeCostros custody, over Kolle's objections.
Then he terminated Kolle's rights, under a provision that can be used when parents abandon newborns. The standards set for abandonment include not residing with the baby. Reed concluded that although Kolle lived in the same house as her baby, she did not "reside" with him because Kiefer took care of him.
Still another difficulty was the lack of an "intermediary's report" in the adoption process. When an agency or individual takes a child and places him with a prospective adoptive couple, state law requires the intermediary to file a report, under oath, explaining how the placement occurred and assuring that everything was done legally. The report requires, among other things, "an itemized accounting of moneys and considerations to be paid to or received by the intermediary." This helps the court prevent illegal baby selling because it can object to excessive fees.
In William's case, however, no such report was filed.
The DeCostros, however, told an adoption official that they paid no money to get William. Carnegie Police also investigated and did not file charges.
The DeCostros and Kiefer have refused to comment on any aspect of the case.
Last week, the DeCostros filed suit in Beaver County against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and staff writer Barbara White Stack. The DeCostros said their reputation has been damaged by news stories and editorials, and they are seeking compensation of more than $25,000.
The suit says the DeCostros' reputation was injured by an editorial that described their actions as "legal kidnapping" and news stories suggesting they obtained the child improperly.
Conflict of interest?
After Reed terminated Kolle's parental rights to William in December 1998, she broke down in tears, his law clerk quit and the ACLU took on Kolle's cause.
Kolle's first attorney, Jean M. Lupariello of Carnegie, also said Reed had violated ethics rules in the case.
That's because Reed had failed to mention to her that his wife, attorney Gretchen Reed, had shared office space with DeCostro in Beaver County. He also did not disclose that he had appointed DeCostro almost exclusively to represent children in termination cases in the county. Lupariello felt that created a potential conflict of interest for Reed, which he should have disclosed before acting in the Kolle case.
The ACLU's Walczak persuaded a Pittsburgh family practice attorney, James E. Mahood of Wilder, Mahood & Crenney, to join Lupariello in representing Kolle. Neither is charging her a fee.
Mahood and Lupariello asked the state Supreme Court to intervene in the Kolle case to reverse her termination so she could resume a relationship with her son.
The court declined to take Kolle's case, so her attorneys had to go back to the time-consuming process of asking Reed to reconsider, and then appealing to Superior Court.
They argued the case before Superior Court in October, 14 months after the DeCostros took the baby. The panel of judges questioned both Mahood and the DeCostros' attorney, so it wasn't clear which way the judges were leaning, but Judge Kate Ford Elliott did ask Mahood one question that gave Kolle hope.
Elliott said if the court were to reverse the termination, she was worried about returning William directly to his mother because the description of her at the termination hearing was less than kind. Mahood responded that if someone were worried about Kolle's ability to care for William, he would be free to call CYF, which could provide her with help.
After losing her child, Kolle obtained treatment for her depression, earned her general equivalency diploma and began working full-time. She has begun parenting classes and shares an apartment with a boyfriend and his two children, whom she cares for routinely.
It could be months before the Superior Court makes its decision. In the meantime, Mahood asked the judges to allow Kolle to visit William. Last week, the court ordered Reed to decide by Dec. 28 whether to grant visits.
Kolle wants to see 21-month-old William as soon as possible. "I haven't bonded with my son since he was four months old," Kolle said. "It will be hard when I get him because we will have to bond all over again."
She has hung a star in her apartment window, which she plans to keep lit until she gets her son back. And she is placing gifts for him under her Christmas tree, alongside those she was unable to give him last year.
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