Staceon
07/14/2000, 10:50 AM
Mother arrested for giving away her son over the Internet
New York Times News Service
SAN FRANCISCO -- In a case an adoption expert calls rare and dangerous, a California woman is accused of giving her 10-year-old son to a stranger, a Florida man who had expressed interest in adopting a boy in an Internet chat room.
The woman said her son's discipline problems were stressing, so she allowed the man to pick up the boy at her Vacaville, Calif., home April 20 and fly him back to St. Petersburg, Fla., the next day, said Vacaville police Detective Patrick Cowan.
Helen Chase, 29, who now lives in Elmira, was arrested after her stepson alerted the police last Friday. She has been charged with child endangerment, child abandonment and failure to provide for a child. Chase, who has been freed on $1,000 bail, could not be reached for comment.
St. Petersburg police retrieved the boy, apparently unharmed, early Saturday from the home of Gustaf and Deborah Sjoberg, Cowan said. The couple, who have four legally adopted children and a child born to them, have not been charged with any crimes.
The couple were cooperative but upset when the boy was taken, said St. Petersburg police spokesman Dan Bates. Bates quoted a police report that stated, "They said they were seeing how (the boy) did living with them before they started the adoption process."
The boy is in a Florida foster home awaiting a judge's order returning him to California. He will most likely be placed in a foster home in California, Cowan said, although child services workers are attempting to reach his father in a state prison.
"He wants to come home," Cowan said. "He does want to be with his mom. It's pretty amazing what kids can go through and still want to be with a parent."
New York Times News Service
SAN FRANCISCO -- In a case an adoption expert calls rare and dangerous, a California woman is accused of giving her 10-year-old son to a stranger, a Florida man who had expressed interest in adopting a boy in an Internet chat room.
The woman said her son's discipline problems were stressing, so she allowed the man to pick up the boy at her Vacaville, Calif., home April 20 and fly him back to St. Petersburg, Fla., the next day, said Vacaville police Detective Patrick Cowan.
Helen Chase, 29, who now lives in Elmira, was arrested after her stepson alerted the police last Friday. She has been charged with child endangerment, child abandonment and failure to provide for a child. Chase, who has been freed on $1,000 bail, could not be reached for comment.
St. Petersburg police retrieved the boy, apparently unharmed, early Saturday from the home of Gustaf and Deborah Sjoberg, Cowan said. The couple, who have four legally adopted children and a child born to them, have not been charged with any crimes.
The couple were cooperative but upset when the boy was taken, said St. Petersburg police spokesman Dan Bates. Bates quoted a police report that stated, "They said they were seeing how (the boy) did living with them before they started the adoption process."
The boy is in a Florida foster home awaiting a judge's order returning him to California. He will most likely be placed in a foster home in California, Cowan said, although child services workers are attempting to reach his father in a state prison.
"He wants to come home," Cowan said. "He does want to be with his mom. It's pretty amazing what kids can go through and still want to be with a parent."