Clik here to view.
She’s Fought Nearly Three Years To Adopt Her Grandson. Hawaii Keeps Saying No.
After her daughter’s tumultuous life ended in a car crash on the Big Island in 2016, Deborah Goodwin tried to get custody of her 2-year-old grandson, who at the time had been placed in foster care with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This Texas Lawyer Flies Marshallese Women Through Hawaii For Black Market...
A Texas lawyer is arranging adoptions that involve birth mothers flown from the Marshall Islands to the U.S. in defiance of a treaty between the two nations, and has told U.S. clients she has done it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hawaii AG: Rehab Center Ignored Promised Reforms For 2 Years
Two years ago, the Sand Island Treatment Center, a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehab reliant largely on public money, told the Hawaii Attorney General that it would fix several problems identified in an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Texas Agency Ordered To Stop Marshall Islands Adoptions
An agency run by a Texas lawyer who was the subject of a Civil Beat investigation into black market Marshall Islands adoptions has been suspended by the organization that accredits international...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abuse Signs In Newborn’s Death Went Unreported — Until His Sister Was Injured
Grayson Beyer was just short of a month old in May 2016 when his parents, an Air Force couple stationed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, brought him to the hospital limp and unresponsive. Testing at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Texas Agency Forced To Shutter Marshallese Adoption Business
A Texas adoption agency that worked with birth mothers from the Marshall Islands must stop all international adoptions after losing its accreditation on Thursday, according to an announcement from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Judge: Mother Wrongly Listed By Hawaii As Abuser Had No Chance To Clear Her Name
Hawaii’s system for listing people on a registry of child abusers “makes no sense” and may have resulted in a “great injustice,” according to an opinion by a U.S. appellate court judge. The case...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fit To Print? State’s Mauna Kea Press Conferences Raise The Question Of...
Even in this cynical age, government institutions have inherent authority. They’re the ones with inside information and experts, expected to serve the public interest even-handedly. They also, of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mysteries Surround Pay For Top Staffers At Prominent Honolulu Rehab
Something puzzling is happening with salaries at Sand Island Treatment Center. The rehab, the subject of a Civil Beat investigation in April, lists widely disparate salaries for the same top workers in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Feds Charge Arkansas Fixer With Luring Marshallese Women To US For Illegal...
A pregnant Marshallese women lured to the U.S. for illicit adoptions was ripped off for thousands of dollars and another was forced to live in overcrowded conditions without a bed, according to a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Major Player In Black Market Marshallese Adoptions Faces Criminal Charges
An Arizona attorney who was the focus of a Civil Beat investigation in November for arranging black market adoptions involving pregnant women from the Marshall Islands has been indicted in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crackdown On Illegal Marshallese Adoptions Comes After More Than A Decade Of...
For more than a decade, several American lawyers lured pregnant women from the Republic of the Marshall Islands to travel to the U.S. for illicit adoptions, and no one seemed to care. Even though their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This Honolulu Lawyer Has Run A Marshallese Baby Business With Impunity
The mainland couples who had been trying to adopt a newborn knew to expect paperwork and drudgery and endless waiting. But once they connected with Honolulu attorney Laurie Loomis, who specialized in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hawaii Disciplinary Counsel To Investigate Lawyer Who Ran Marshallese Baby...
The Hawaii office that investigates misconduct by attorneys said Wednesday that it is launching an investigation of Laurie Loomis, a Honolulu lawyer who has specialized in adoptions involving birth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Georgia Adoption Consultants Helped Honolulu Lawyer Place Marshallese Babies
Honolulu attorney Laurie Loomis had lined up pregnant women from the Marshall Islands who would fly to the U.S. and place their newborns in adoptions. But to find the U.S. couples who wanted to adopt...
View ArticleClik here to view.
COVID-19 Cuts Off Hawaii Parents From Kids In Foster Care
Even a contentious relationship with the foster parents of her child did not prepare Laura Miller for what happened in mid-March. Miller got an email from the state social worker handling the case...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Information Lockdown At Hawaii Labor Department Stymies Coronavirus Stories
Perhaps you are a frontline worker in Hawaii — a nurse, a grocery store worker, a delivery person — and feel that your employer has not taken adequate steps to protect you from COVID-19. Or maybe you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
3 New COVID-19 Cases In Hawaii Announced Saturday
The Hawaii Department of Health confirmed three new cases of COVID-19 Saturday, including one each on Maui and Oahu and one involving a Hawaii resident on the mainland. The new cases bring the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hawaii Reports 1 New COVID-19 Case Sunday
The Hawaii Department of Health reported one new COVID-19 case Sunday, on Oahu, bringing the state’s total for the pandemic to 632. The state reported no new deaths. The total stands at 17, including...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sex Abuse Cases Pose Dilemma For Media: How Much To Disclose?
Here’s the thing about stories of alleged sexual abuse: The stakes are gut-wrenchingly high for all the parties, whether the alleged victim or the perpetrator or the institutions where the abuse is...
View Article
