Tuesday, February 21, 2012

My thoughts on the latest AP reports



Ok, so on the first ap report I posted yesterday, I re-read it several times and the more times I read it, the more I disliked it.




Rebecca's comment about having had two birth mothers change their minds previously and thought she could spot red flags makes it sounds like pregnant woman who consider adoption and change their minds are scamming. Infuriates me. I'm fail to see how it's so difficult to differentiate between a scam and a pregnant woman who changes her mind. Also, the writer made no mention of previous alias names or the fact that she was caught on national tv a few years ago....even though I gave him tons of information on her. Lastly, he didn't put officer greg's number to contact for her latest victims to contact. I think thet only good thing that will come from this is the vests will end up with another baby. Maybe I'm just tired of fighting this losing battle...

Then the second story came out today. In this one, stories are put with victims names and it gives a background as to what Amy's past has been.

I actually quoted "nothing's going to change until somebody pitches a fit." Oh. my. goodness. I really said that. Classy, huh? I can't help it. I start thinking about her and I lose my everloving mind. I'm happiest with the simple quote of "
"It's not good for someone who wants to adopt, but it's not good for these women who want to put up their children for adoption. They're looked at suspiciously and that's not fair either." That's been my point for so long.....It's not just about the potential adoptive parents, it's about the women considering placing thier babies for adoption or those women who plan on adoption and change their minds afterward. Could this really happen?  Could there be enough public outrage to get laws and regulations in place?  Time will tell....


Read more: Woman's trail of phony pregnancies ends in Armstrong County jail - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/news/s_782690.html#ixzz1n5AMzBHB

AP Article #2. I like this one

Woman's trail of phony pregnancies ends in Armstrong County jail

Amy Slanina is sitting in Armstrong County Jail on charges that she stole the services of a women's shelter by claiming to be the battered wife of a cop who shelter officials eventually determined didn't exist.
But that arrest has shone a spotlight on her history, tracked down through court records and interviews conducted by The Associated Press, of pretending to be pregnant so couples seeking to adopt children or even female lovers will shower her with attention and sometimes money, clothes and shelter.
Police in Kittanning briefly charged her with scamming an Idaho couple whom Slanina contacted, claiming to be pregnant. The couple, Barry and Rebecca Vest, traveled to Pennsylvania five days after Christmas hoping to adopt Slanina's baby, only to find Slanina in custody on the women's shelter charges — and not pregnant.
But Slanina, 32, has avoided prosecution for faking pregnancies. One reason, Kittanning police and other authorities say, is that most states, like Pennsylvania, don't have laws criminalizing false adoption offers.
As a result, Slanina has left an angry trail of dupes in her wake and been arrested only when authorities suspected her of some other crime related to her fake pregnancies.
Angry victims
None of her victims claims to be madder than Lori Coleman, who has doggedly pursued Slanina, detailing her experiences online.
"Nothing's going to change until somebody pitches a fit," said Coleman of Cleveland, Tenn., a 36-year-old adoptive mother of two children. "It's not good for someone who wants to adopt, but it's not good for these women who want to put up their children for adoption. They're looked at suspiciously and that's not fair either."
Coleman met Slanina more than six years ago by responding to an ad from someone claiming to be pregnant and wanting to give up her baby for adoption. They met for lunch in 2005. The woman introduced herself as Christy Tidwell.
Coleman and her husband, whose adopted daughter was 3 at the time, were so happy to have found another prospective child that they hired a Nashville attorney, through whom they gave the woman $800 for living expenses.
About a month later, though, "she fell off the face of the earth," Coleman said.
NBC's "Dateline" knew of similar stories from other adoptive couples in North Carolina and Texas. Producers got Coleman to lure Slanina, whom she knew as Tidwell, before the show's cameras. She 'fessed up on an episode that aired in July 2006.
Slanina was never charged with scamming Coleman. But she was charged with identity theft when the real Christy Tidwell contacted authorities after she saw the "Dateline" episode.
Coleman testified as part of that case and learned, along with investigators, that Tidwell and Slanina were romantically involved. Slanina led Tidwell to believe they would raise the child together. "Dateline" even shot video of the women shopping for baby clothes.
The phone number listed for Tidwell in court documents was disconnected, as were three of four numbers listed for her in Tennessee phone directories. Messages left at the fourth number went unreturned.
Coleman recalled that her scammer pleaded guilty to identity theft and to stealing a truck that she borrowed from someone, supposedly to attend a funeral in Ohio. Court records confirm this and show she was sentenced to more than two years in jail in January 2007.
Early relationship
Slanina claimed to be born in 1983 when she met Jen Asbury, a 25-year-old Army reservist from Morgantown, W.Va., in September.
Asbury said she answered a Craigslist ad from a woman who said she was a 28-year-old nurse in Ohio who was pregnant with twins and looking for a relationship.
The relationship was "wonderful" while they spent a month text messaging and telephoning. They spoke of marriage and raising the twins.
But once Slanina arrived to live with Asbury at her parents' home in October, it wasn't so great anymore.
"She's very good at what she does," Asbury said. "She threatens to leave a lot if there's something she doesn't like. I'm talking like a daily basis."
Friends of Asbury's parents showered the family with baby clothes and other items upon learning their daughter and Amy planned to marry and then return to raise the twins Slanina claimed to be carrying.
That's when Slanina's behavior got really bizarre, Asbury said.
Days after she moved in, she claimed her mother in Pittsburgh had died. Slanina left for about a week, then called to say she gave birth prematurely. The twins were said to be in intensive care, and Slanina returned to live with Asbury and her parents for about another month.
Then, she said one of the twins was being released from the hospital and she was going to pick him up, Asbury said.
Asbury said Slanina took some running shoes, $170 worth of DVDs and Blu-ray movies and a digital camera, but left behind the baby-related gifts.
"I never heard from her after that."
Asbury suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder she said stems from her service in Mosul in 2009. Asbury said she stopped seeking treatment and taking her medication while Slanina was part of her life.
"She loves to isolate whoever she's dating," she said. But Slanina's attempts to keep Asbury from her parents backfired, and Asbury believes that's why she left.
"She's a hopeless sociopath," Asbury said. "I don't think she has any feelings."
Legal trouble
Less than two weeks later, Slanina showed up about 85 miles away in Kittanning's battered women's shelter.
But that's not the first time law enforcement officials traced her to Western Pennsylvania. She was arrested in a Pittsburgh suburb in February 2010 on a warrant out of Ohio.
Months earlier, Slanina began another online friendship with Lisa Booth and her elderly mother, Helen, in Fredericktown, Ohio. Slanina told them she was pregnant with twins through artificial insemination and recently removed from an abusive relationship with another woman, court records show. The Booths didn't respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.
Slanina sent three expensive flower arrangements to the women — a flower shop later called to complain to the Booths that they were purchased with stolen checks and credit cards — and moved in with them in January 2010. She persuaded Helen to lend her money to pay child support so she could avoid going to jail.
Slanina told the Booths she had millions of dollars from an inheritance, but that it was in a frozen bank account. Outlandish as that sounds, the Booths were emotionally drawn to Slanina — Helen Booth told Slanina to call her "Mom" — and committed to helping her.
But on Feb. 8, 2010, she borrowed Helen's 1997 Ford Taurus to "run some errands" and never came back.
"You find a victim that falls for your sob story, take all their personal belongings and money, then emotionally rape them," Lisa Booth told Slanina before a judge sentenced her to 17 months in prison on grand theft auto and other charges in June 2010. "In my case, you shut me off from my friends and family then convinced me to quit my job because you claimed to have a large inheritance to finance a business we could run."
Told of the most recent allegations against Slanina in Pennsylvania, Chip McConville, the prosecutor in the Ohio case, said, "That would be true to her old playbook."
Slanina is on probation in the Ohio case and faces a probation violation that could mean more jail time once the Pennsylvania case is resolved.
The Vests are hoping for a long sentence, but what they'd really like is an explanation.
"What did you get from this?" Rebecca Vest said, noting that Slanina gained nothing, materially, by lying to them. "Since you have a history of this, why can't you change? Why can't you get a job like everybody else? Why do you make a living off of causing other people pain?
"Are you that miserable that you have to make other people miserable?"




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