Woman pleads guilty
to adoption schemeThe Kauai resident faced visa
fraud and laundering charges
SEATTLE >> A Kauai woman accused of fraud in arranging American adoptions of Cambodian children pleaded guilty to federal charges yesterday.
Lauryn Galindo, 52, of Hanalei, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit visa fraud, conspiracy to launder money and "structuring" -- purchasing $30,000 worth of cashier's checks in amounts under $10,000 to avoid federal bank-reporting requirements.
At issue are 18 adoptions -- among hundreds in which Galindo was involved since the early 1990s -- arranged between 1997 and 2001.
Galindo represented the children as orphans when she knew they had "at least one living parent," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Lord said.
Other facts -- names, dates of birth, relatives and physical characteristics -- also were misrepresented to U.S. officials, the plea agreement said. The money-laundering charge concerns more than $153,000 in wire transfers to Cambodian accounts from adoptive parents.
Children in the 18 adoptions were identified only by initials in court documents.
Galindo and her sister, Lynn Devin, of suburban Mercer Island, Wash., ran the now-shuttered Seattle International Adoptions. Devin pleaded guilty in December to falsifying documents to obtain U.S. visas for Cambodian children. She is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 6.
Cambodia is one of the world's poorest nations. The United States and some other Western nations began barring international adoptions from Cambodia in December 2001.
Among those who used Seattle International Adoptions was actress Angelina Jolie, who adopted a little boy named Maddox.
There is no evidence that the actress did anything wrong or that the boy was not an orphan -- one of several hundred Cambodian children adopted by Americans each year until the ban.
The U.S. government plans to take no action that would jeopardize the residency status of Cambodian children in the United States who were adopted through the agency, U.S. Attorney John McKay said in a statement.
Galindo entered the plea because "she wants to move on," federal public defender Jay Stansell said after the hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler.
At her scheduled Sept. 24 sentencing, Galindo could face as much as 20 years in prison, but federal public defender Colin Feiman said he anticipates a "significantly lower" sentence.
The decision will be up to U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly.
At sentencing, "we look forward to putting the case in the context of her life's work," Stansell said. "We want people to know who she is and what this work was."
He declined to elaborate but said some adoptive parents might testify.
Galindo and Devin have agreed that all illegal profits they made through the adoption agency will be forfeited, McKay said.
Galindo did not speak to reporters.
"There are a million things she'd like to say, but we won't let her," Feiman said.
Theiler scheduled a hearing for tomorrow on a defense request to allow Galindo to go to Thailand and Cambodia on a seven- to 10-day mission before sentencing. Stansell said Galindo wanted to make the trip as a volunteer "for the sole purpose of humanitarian work."
"She wanted to be doing something good for the community," he said.
Prosecutors want her to stay in Hawaii or Washington state.
While the plea agreement requires forfeiture of property acquired as a result of the crimes, Galindo, currently unemployed, will be allowed to live in her Hanalei home and use her Jaguar until she reports to the Bureau of Prisons, the document said.
Galindo turned herself in in January.
Neither she nor Devin is in custody.
The first two counts covered by the plea were in a Seattle criminal information, and the third in an indictment from Hawaii. The charges followed a two-year federal investigation.