Rick and Susan Hayhow, operators of the former Cambridge-based international adoption agency, are in court facing fraud charges.
The preliminary hearing for the now estranged couple began Monday morning.
It’s been three years since the non-profit Imagine Adoption Inc. filed for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of families in Canada hoping to adopt in limbo.
In 2011, the couple was charged with breach of trust, as well as numerous fraud charges, both jointly and individually.
Police have alleged the couple spent around $420,000 of the agency’s funds on personal items like clothing, vacations, cars and home renovations.
As the hearing began Monday, the breach of trust charges were withdrawn by the Crown.
Susan’s attorney Michael Lacy says “The Crown determined, quite properly, that there was no reasonable prospect for conviction, but yes, the breach of trust charge can be a very serious fraud allegation and in this case it’s no long a charge my client is facing.”
The preliminary hearing is scheduled to continue for three days, but Lacy says it could wrap up sooner.
There is no judge present as it has already been decided the case will go to trial. The hearing is for discovery, allowing defence lawyers to question witnesses.
“There’s a number of witnesses to be called,” Lacy says, “there’s no need for a judge for these purposes and that was an agreement that the parties came to.”
A publication ban is in place on the evidence and testimony at the hearing.
Affected families react
Many families waiting to adopt were hit hard when Imagine filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Angela and Brian Sandau were one of about 400 families left in limbo, not knowing if their son, now an active two-year-old, would ever make it to Canada from Ethiopia.
Addis has now been in Canada since May 2011, but Brian says at the time “We didn’t know if we were ever going to become parents.”
For the Keizer family, the process to adopt daughter Makeda was supposed to take a year, but ended up taking nearly four years.
Mom Ashleigh Keizer documented the trials on her blog, ‘The Keizer Family Five,’ calling it “the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.”
But they were the lucky ones. For other families adoption plans came to a halt. Ingrid Phaneuf is a former client who says her family lost thousands in fees.
“We lost $15,000 and it wasn’t money we’d saved up. It was money that we scrambled, fundraised and took out of our credit line. We are still paying it off.”
Phaneuf eventually dropped the international adoption and instead became the mother of two older children from Ontario.
The Sandaus realize that while their story is a positive one, others are still trying to deal with the repercussions.
Angela says “For us it’s a lot easier to deal with the news of the court case and everything because we have Addis, so we had a happy ending, but a lot of families still haven’t had theirs yet.”
The stress of the situation led to divorce in some cases, the Sandaus add, while some who eventually did get their children are still trying to manage the fallout of the process.
