Adoption fraud uncovered after months of waiting for daughter to be born

Our repository of news archives contains numerous articles supporting the view that sending a criminal to prison, only makes them a better criminal — rehabilitation is an arguably weak theory when contrast against the high incidence of criminals who are released, offend again, and are returned to prison.

Historic City News became aware of a St Augustine resident, 27-year-old Christina Marie “Nina” Osteen, last week when we were contacted by Carol Wolff, Executive director of St. Gerard Campus in St. Augustine.

The well regarded non-profit high school, pregnancy counseling and referral service had become the victim of an apparent fraud that goes well beyond the loss of money; striking at the core of their charitable, faith-based mission.

O’Steen is a white female with brown hair and Hazel eyes. She is about 5′ 04″ tall and weighs about 180 pounds. We know this, not because we observed her as she perpetrated this swindle, because those details appear on her prison record.

Historic City News confirmed with the Florida Department of Corrections that O’Steen first served a one-year and six-month sentence in State prison beginning October 2008; for the sale, manufacturing, and delivery of cocaine in St Johns County.

After her release, on June 11, 2013 and again on January 28, 2014, O’Steen committed two felony thefts in St Johns County, each theft was less than $5,000. She was convicted and began her next prison sentence on October 27, 2014.

It was while O’Steen was serving this one-year and one-month term of incarceration at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, that a family back in St Augustine learned that O’Steen was pregnant.

With assistance from the Law Office of L. Lynn Lawrence P.A. in Morriston, FL, the local family began the process of entering into a semi-open adoption agreement and providing customary financial support to the inmate during her pregnancy. The adoptive parents were told that O’Steen was several weeks pregnant and she was due to deliver on May 16, 2015.

There was an estimated twelve-day window that would occur between the birth of the O’Steen child and her release from prison on May 28th, according to the local family.

All of the money paid by the family to their attorney, Lynn Lawrence, was not for the benefit of O’Steen. A portion of the payments were used for legal fees and other costs. Although the family did not know the exact amount that was paid directly to O’Steen, Historic City News was told that it was “several thousand dollars”. They estimated for us that the total payments to their lawyer would have been about $18,000 had everything gone as planned and the adoption been completed.

Of course, that did not happen.

While the local family made plans to welcome their new daughter, they were in communication with their attorney and O’Steen; and, according to an interview provided to us by the family, they had no reason to suspect anything awry.

Unfortunately, according to a statement taken by Historic City News editor Michael Gold from Carol Wolff, at the time O’Steen was being released from prison, she and her father, Jerry, contacted St Gerard Campus to tell a completely different story.

Wolff said that O’Steen and her father pled dire circumstances. O’Steen claimed she had no food, proper nourishment for the infant, a safe place to stay, and that her newborn had a non-supporting father. St Gerard Campus was unaware that O’Steen had already entered into an adoption plan and agreement for her infant girl, Wolff said.

St. Gerard Campus did what they would normally do — locate shelter for the mother and her child, make an attorney referral so that O’Steen could begin the adoption process, or so they thought, and provide a channel for confidential communications between the birth mother and a prospective adoption family.

Wolff reiterated that St Gerard was as much a victim as the local family; since they had paid out six-months rent, in advance, for a temporary residence, and had advanced thousands more dollars to O’Steen on behalf of another family.

We were informed that with the birth of her daughter on June 5th, O’Steen now has seven children — all of whom have been put up for adoption, hopefully to more honest, responsible families.

The local family told us that the attorney who represented them in arranging for this adoption is now representing them in an attempt to collect civil damages from O’Steen. Attorney Lawrence also plans to assist police in compiling the necessary evidence to send O’Steen back to prison. She is believed to still be in the St Augustine area, and may be harbored by her father, who participated in the St Gerard Campus scheme.