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00:02Hi there, good evening, happy Sunday. My name is Taryn.
00:06We trusted her. She was our friend.
00:09It's a boy! It's a boy!
00:12I met this baby that I thought was nice.
00:16Something didn't sit right with me. What are you hiding?
00:21The more you peel back the layers, the more bizarre the stories got.
00:26The amount of people that she had to lie to, the quantity of lies.
00:33Do we need to be scared?
00:35We had no idea of the scale this scheme would rise to.
00:41She's like selling babies on the black market.
00:45She is a brilliant monster.
00:48It was devastating.
00:52I truly knew in that moment that my life would never be the same.
00:56I'm Special Agent Matt Sluss, FBI.
00:59I'm Intelligence Analyst Nishan Spiller, FBI Detroit.
01:05When serious crime strikes, the special agents of the FBI answer the call.
01:12Fidelity.
01:13Bravery.
01:14Integrity.
01:17This is Fence.
01:23Hey there, everyone.
01:25It's me, Tara, the founder and director of Always Hope Pregnancy Center.
01:28And we are live with you today from our brand new office.
01:31We're absolutely loving it.
01:32We've got a really nice view of the city now, which makes me happy.
01:46I met Kyle back in 2014 on a dating app.
01:52We dated for a year.
01:54And then he proposed to me on a pier in Lake Michigan.
01:58And then a year after that, we were married.
02:02Kyle and I, we are a same-sex couple.
02:05And we really, really wanted to have children.
02:12We talked through all the different options.
02:15Fostering is a great route, but it wasn't going to be for us.
02:20Surrogacy, we didn't know how to go about that, right?
02:23And adoption kind of just fell into our lap as the best fit.
02:28We went into the whole adoption process with a lot of concerns.
02:33We're a same-sex couple.
02:34We're both males.
02:36We heard horror stories of them being very strict and that you're going to have to wait years to go
02:41and find an adoption.
02:43But we were both willing to fight for it.
02:46We were talking to a friend of ours, and it was recommended that there was this woman, Tara Lee, that
02:51had an adoption agency called Always Hope.
02:55It's been a minute since we've given you an update, and we wanted to bring you another birth mom story
03:00today.
03:00And today with me, I have Alex.
03:02And Alex's beautiful baby boy, Landon, was born on March 14th.
03:07We looked up Always Hope and Tara Lee and what she was doing.
03:11And it seemed legit.
03:15So we actually met and sat down with Tara.
03:18We showed our concerns, and she didn't see it being a problem.
03:22She was very chatty.
03:24You could joke around with her.
03:26And everything just kind of looked right.
03:41Curtis and I were high school sweethearts.
03:45And we always knew we wanted a big family.
03:48We had already had four children, but they were very high-risk pregnancies.
03:55And so we started looking into adoption.
03:59But Colorado is a very hard state to adopt from.
04:03We just weren't having luck.
04:07We came across Tara Lee through Facebook adoption groups.
04:12And they had all loved Tara.
04:16She was a mom of adoptive kids.
04:20And I thought, well, if she can do it, and I've heard good things about her, then we can do
04:26it.
04:35So in a matter of three months, we are now matched with a baby.
04:44We talked with the birth mom, got to know each other a little bit.
04:50When we were matched, we signed paperwork.
04:53We did have to put money down for birth mother expenses.
05:00Rent, utilities, gas, food, anything that the birth mother could need.
05:06In addition to that, legal fees and Tara's fee.
05:15And then Tara took control of all of it.
05:19So we went to doctor's appointments with the birth mom.
05:23We were there the day we found the sex of the baby.
05:25It was great.
05:27Everything that we could have hoped for.
05:32Today with me, I have Alex.
05:34And she's with us today to tell you her story.
05:37So I'm going to hand it over to Alex.
05:41Hi.
05:43So, August of last year, I found out that I was pregnant.
05:49It was only a week later that she had called me and said that she had had a birth mom
05:54that she thought that we would match well with.
05:57We were excited, and the first thing she said was, now I need money.
06:03At that point, she asked for $3,000.
06:06We knew that that was part of the process.
06:08That's just how adoption works.
06:17Okay, this is the gender reveal.
06:20Should I go?
06:21Go.
06:22We had a gender reveal party with our kids.
06:40We were starting to get ready and excited.
06:52The best thing.
06:55In June, our son was born.
06:58Holding him that first time and just having that little life in your hands was amazing.
07:07And Tara did it.
07:08She did exactly what she said she would do.
07:11It was all because of her.
07:21The baby actually came a month early, and so we got a phone call from Tara saying, she's in labor,
07:27she's at the hospital, you need to get on a plane now.
07:30And we flew to Detroit.
07:34And she took us to the hospital, and we were walked to the NICU.
07:41The birth mom said, here's your son.
07:44Tara said, here's your son.
07:47We took photos and videos and sent them to the kids, introduced him as if he were their little brother.
08:01And on the way back to the hotel, we got a phone call from Tara saying that the birth mom
08:08was changing her mind.
08:11Families know that adoptions can fail.
08:15Nothing is guaranteed.
08:16But I had met this baby that I thought was mine, but wasn't mine.
08:26We were in the parking lot.
08:29And I just dropped to my knees.
08:31Because I knew it was over at that point.
08:38That's it, I'm done.
08:40And I just wanted to go home.
08:56I had actually thought I had built a friendship with Tara.
09:00I still believed in her.
09:02I was matched with another birth mom.
09:08And Tara was asking for more money right away.
09:14And if you questioned her on that, she would say, well, if you don't pay this money, you may lose
09:21this match.
09:25The birth mother had asked me to come out for the delivery.
09:30And I was the first one to hold the baby.
09:34And Tara was in the birth mom's room talking to her.
09:39And it was the next morning that we tried to go back to the hospital to see the baby.
09:44And we learned that the birth mom had told the hospital, do not allow Courtney to my room.
09:55It was devastating.
09:59Mad at myself for allowing it to happen again.
10:04And it was also the feeling of betrayal from Tara.
10:10Something's just not right.
10:11This is not how this works.
10:24I met this woman online named Sarah.
10:29She actually had a failed adoption before with Tara.
10:39We were related in a lot of ways.
10:41It felt like she'd been through the same experience.
10:50So we started a Facebook group, a private Facebook group.
10:54That started out with three families.
11:03In a month, it was 20 families.
11:05And then in a couple of months, it was 100 families.
11:17Far bigger than we ever imagined.
11:22It was really hard to believe at first.
11:25More than one of them had been matched with one woman.
11:28So this one woman and Tara were promising this one baby to three different families at the same time.
11:36Who thinks of that?
11:37Just disgusting.
11:53At the time of this case, I had been an FBI agent for about one year.
11:58I was assigned to our complex financial crime squad, where I investigate an array of financial crimes.
12:06This unit is comprised of very talented, experienced individuals, trying to uncover highly complex fraud.
12:16Some of the common things we'd investigate would be romance scams, business email compromise, embezzlement, and corporate securities and commodities
12:25fraud.
12:26Unfortunately, scams are pretty common across the United States.
12:33In October of 2018, an individual who was closely associated with Tara Lee's adoption practice came forward and brought information
12:46to the FBI that there appeared to be some irregularities with Tara's adoption process.
12:52And some of those irregularities were alleged to potentially be fraudulent.
13:00Adoption fraud is not something that I had heard of prior to this case.
13:04So we talked with the United States Attorney's Office up front.
13:08Matt Sluss said, we're hearing some pretty wild allegations about adoptions taking place in Michigan.
13:15That Tara Lee double-matched prospective adoptive parents with birth mothers.
13:20I was, you know, shocked and appalled.
13:23Even without knowing that much about adoption law, I could tell that that's not right.
13:28We learned that Tara Lee was a mom and that she seemed to have started to engage in adoptions in
13:40this unconventional way driven by her Facebook page.
13:42And it really accelerated over the years.
13:47We learned that she did have successful adoptions.
13:51Always Hope was a registered business with the state of Michigan, but Lee was not licensed to provide those services.
13:58And it appeared that Lee was engaging in more fraud than successful adoptions.
14:06This appears to be a wire fraud scheme based on adoptions.
14:11We need to investigate.
14:13We need to investigate quickly.
14:17We interview dozens of victims.
14:21And it starts to snowball.
14:23They took it very seriously.
14:25They came to our house, other families' houses.
14:28They were calling families.
14:30We gave the FBI everything that we had found.
14:32You could hear the pain in their voice, in their words.
14:37How Tara would draw them in to these adoption matches.
14:42Would make them feel real to them.
14:45How she would collect her fees.
14:47And we'd hear their stories about how then Tara would fail the match.
14:52She would tell simple stories such as your birth mother miscarried.
14:56Or your birth mother changed her mind.
14:59Things that are very plausible to the victims so they wouldn't grow suspicious.
15:02The fraud here was so blatant.
15:05And in many ways, just a classic scam.
15:11It is common to see that a fraudster, they start by building rapport with you.
15:19Lee was very good at being charismatic, being believable.
15:26Lee would make it seem like there's this close bond.
15:30Lee said, we shared everything with Tara.
15:33We trusted her.
15:35She became one of our closest friends.
15:46Lee said, hey guys, your son's birth mother is pregnant again.
15:50And are you guys interested in adopting another child?
15:55You'll be a great match.
15:56You'll be a great match.
15:58So pay today.
15:59Pay today.
16:01And so we wrote her a giant check.
16:09And we were head over heels.
16:12She was giving us updates multiple times a day.
16:16We talked all the time.
16:18And we start to see that pattern.
16:21That kind of over-the-top communication.
16:25Love bombing.
16:30In May of that year, the birth mom decided that she was going to keep the baby.
16:38We knew it was going to be a little girl.
16:41I never knew I wanted a daughter until it was in front of my face.
16:49And Tara saw that.
16:51Tara knew that.
16:57A savvy criminal is able to defraud the same victim multiple times.
17:05And Tara said, listen, I'm on board.
17:08I'm here to help you guys.
17:09I have birth moms and different opportunities coming up all the time.
17:13So there was always hope that this was going to happen.
17:17She lets them down.
17:18They're disappointed.
17:20I'm sorry that that one didn't work.
17:21But I have another one for you.
17:24I'll be able to use some of the money that you already gave me.
17:27But I'm going to need some more.
17:32And so we sent Tara the money.
17:38But we never heard from this birth mother again.
17:42There was no offer for money to come back.
17:45It was over.
17:46Just like that.
17:52We had a wealth of information coming in to us.
17:57And in a short amount of time.
18:00The list of victims grew.
18:05We had a map of the United States.
18:08And we were putting a star on each state where there was a victim associated with Lee.
18:15I thought, this is getting much bigger.
18:19We're so convinced that there's fraud going on.
18:21And so we moved to, how do we get the evidence we need to prove what's really going on here?
18:28We need to investigate actual adoptions in process.
18:45My husband and I met 13 years ago on a dating app.
18:50We've been married almost 10 years.
18:53We knew that we wanted to start having kids right away.
18:57And it didn't work out really well for us.
19:00So we went straight into adoption.
19:05Hi there.
19:06My name is Tara.
19:07And I am the owner and director of Always Hope Pregnancy Center.
19:10A week after we signed, we were matched.
19:13Tara said to me, I need you to send me two credit card transactions.
19:17One for $8,000 for Sheila, which is our birth mother.
19:20One for $5,000 for my services.
19:24$3,000 would be due after the baby was born.
19:27And then in addition to that, we would have attorney's fees.
19:30Close to $10,000.
19:31She told us she's due in two weeks.
19:33In hindsight, I, you know, feel like there were red flags.
19:40At the time, I didn't, I just, we didn't have experience with it.
19:47I didn't know.
19:48And that's when all hell broke loose.
19:54I get an email from one of the referral agencies that we had signed with.
19:59And it said, has anyone here worked with Tara Lee and Always Hope?
20:05I called Tanya, one of the attorneys that we are paying to do our adoption.
20:11And she said, you cannot tell anyone what I'm about to tell you.
20:16She said, Tara Lee is under FBI investigation for double matching families.
20:22And matching families to babies that don't exist.
20:30And I just lost it.
20:44I could not keep myself together.
20:48We're just, like, we don't know what to believe.
20:54Mike called the FBI.
20:57He said, I don't know what to do.
21:01Is our birth mom involved in this?
21:03Do we need to be scared?
21:07They're asking us, what should I do?
21:10Now, at this point, we don't know if their match is real.
21:16We don't know if there's a double match.
21:18We don't know if the entire thing is fabricated.
21:22We started to realize that there were times that she made up women that didn't exist.
21:30There was a situation where Tara called in adoptive parents that their pregnant birth mother had been shot and killed
21:37and that their baby died in utero.
21:40But in reality, there is no birth mother at all.
21:45There's no pregnancy.
21:46The whole thing is fabricated.
21:50Lee even asked one of the prospective parents to cover funeral costs.
21:57It started to sink in just how outlandish, how cruel the fraud here was.
22:09Mike called the attorney and asked her, what do we do?
22:12And she said, get in the car and drive up.
22:16But you cannot let Tara know anything that's going on.
22:20Otherwise, that'll interfere with the FBI investigation.
22:25You have to pretend everything is good.
22:33Tara was waiting for us at the hospital.
22:39Our birth mom was already in her room.
22:40They had her hooked up.
22:44And so I was like, oh, thank God.
22:46She's real.
22:47You know, it is really real.
22:55I've never known anybody who's done this before, putting their child up for adoption.
23:03I was scared.
23:07We were living paycheck to paycheck.
23:10Everything was just falling apart.
23:16How I met Tara is I got her phone number from a therapist.
23:25Tara came to my house.
23:27She was nice.
23:29She was pretty.
23:31She seemed like she cared.
23:34Tara made a lot of promises to me.
23:38Your bills are going to get taken care of.
23:40Your rent's going to be paid, utilities, you know, groceries, anything I need my pregnancy, you know.
23:49That's her way of, you know, luring you in.
24:00At that point, I felt like our birth mom wasn't involved.
24:03But I still wasn't sure.
24:06We didn't know who to trust during this.
24:08Mike and I wanted time to, you know, just talk with her.
24:12And Tara would not give us that time.
24:16And then the first thing that Tara said to me was, you know that you owe me, you know, $3
24:20,000.
24:25The worst part was when I went into labor, because Tara, the whole time I'm, like, in labor, all she
24:34keeps telling me is that she wants more money from Teresa and Michael.
24:41Want me to tell them they need to give her more money.
24:49And I was like, what?
24:53The next day, the baby was born.
24:59I couldn't contain myself.
25:01He was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
25:05But he was tiny.
25:07He was sick.
25:08So he wasn't doing very well.
25:10It was very difficult.
25:14And Tara comes in behind us and immediately starts asking for the money again.
25:23At one point, Mike and I were downstairs eating, and we were walking back up, and we just so happened
25:28to run into Sheila.
25:30And we took the opportunity to, you know, just talk with her.
25:36And I told her, I said, she's up there yelling at me, telling me if they're not paying her the
25:43money, then they're not getting the baby.
25:49I just couldn't believe it.
25:52And then we learned that none of their utilities have been paid.
25:57They owed $1,000 on their electric bill.
26:00And our birth mom did not have a coat.
26:05Teresa noticed it right away.
26:06She asked me where my coat was.
26:10So I didn't have one.
26:12She didn't have proper shoes.
26:14It was, you know, winter in Michigan, and she didn't have clothes.
26:24We were in complete shock.
26:27You know, we had given her $8,000 for Sheila.
26:31And in that moment, we knew that Tara had not given her the money.
26:37She's a terrible person.
26:46We began to discover birth mothers being neglected while Tara is promising care and counseling.
26:53They're just not receiving.
26:55The prospective parents were paying a lot of money for the birth mothers that went straight to Lee's pocket.
27:06The paranoia, the anxiety, it was just, it was terrible.
27:13We stayed at that NIC unit night and day.
27:19We joined the private Facebook group with all of the families.
27:23And then there's a picture that comes up of our son that was just born.
27:28And we found out that, you know, Tara was trying to adopt our son out to other families while we
27:34were in the hospital.
27:37So then it was like panic.
27:48At this point in the investigation, we began to learn a lot more about Tara's relationship with the actual birth
27:57mothers.
27:58Tara was very manipulative.
28:01She was very coercive.
28:04That's Tara's house over there.
28:08It's been a long time since I have been back here.
28:13When I walked in the house the first time, I knew something was going on.
28:20First thing I noticed, there's like six girls pregnant at this table.
28:26And they were eating hungry Howie's pizza and pop.
28:31Tara says to me, oh, these are girls from out of state.
28:37So I was like, what the heck?
28:40And she had a big camper in the back.
28:45And a couple of them were staying in the camper.
28:48And I was just like, what the hell?
28:51It's just, it's wintertime, you know, and these girls are getting ready to have a baby.
28:57And she's got them in a camper.
29:00It's like selling babies on the black market.
29:05She went after girls that were desperate, that didn't have any other way out of the situation.
29:17Tara advertised herself at local jails.
29:21She would advertise herself at methadone clinics.
29:26She would exploit people that had deep vulnerabilities in order to manipulate them to do what she wanted them to
29:34do so she could profit.
29:38And then I found out that Tara was doing more than I thought she was doing.
29:44Like, terrible, terrible stuff.
29:47One of the girls wasn't even freaking pregnant.
29:50And she was pretending she was.
29:52And Tara was paying her to lie.
30:00There was a lot of rumor surrounding Tara Lee that she was manipulating people to lie.
30:06But it wasn't concrete evidence that a crime had been committed.
30:11But then we got a very compelling piece of evidence.
30:16We were able to obtain a copy of a telephone call.
30:22An individual brought this information to our office.
30:30You ready?
30:31Yeah.
30:33Hold on.
30:33The murder is.
30:36This was a three-way telephone call posted by Tara Lee, where Tara had a call with an adoptive parent.
30:44And Tara had another individual named Angelica Wiggins on the call, pretending to be somebody else, pretending to be a
30:54different birth mother named Chantel.
30:57Chantel, are you there?
30:58Yeah, I'm here.
31:00Say hi, Lacey.
31:02Hi, how are you doing?
31:02I'm good.
31:04I'm good.
31:05How are you?
31:06Good.
31:07I had a little bit of morning sickness, but I'm doing good.
31:09And Tara had actually asked a woman to pretend to be pregnant.
31:16We know that she's not pregnant.
31:19I thought, wow, Lee is actually doing this.
31:23That was a turning point.
31:25It was concrete evidence that a crime had been committed.
31:28We're ready to go to the next stage in the investigation.
31:32We can search her house.
31:44We knock on her door.
31:47Tara comes to her door and she answers.
31:51And we execute a search warrant of Tara Lee's residence.
31:56We talk to her about her business, which then slowly evolves into us asking her about more specifics.
32:02And through this conversation, it becomes clear that Tara is lying.
32:08Families across the country are reeling after learning the woman who promised them babies isn't licensed by the state to
32:14do adoption work.
32:16We saw them taking boxes and boxes of material out.
32:20FBI agents searched this home in New Haven, Michigan.
32:25How did this happen?
32:30One of the most significant pieces of evidence that we collected that morning was Tara Lee's cell phone.
32:37We found exactly what we were hoping for.
32:40Text message conversations between herself and numerous sets of adoptive parents.
32:47Text messages between herself and birth mothers.
32:51We were able to obtain copies of bank statements.
32:57Trying to uncover what the money was that she was making and then what she did with that money.
33:02Many of the victims, the dollar amounts that they had lost ranged from $9,000 to upwards of $55,000.
33:10And we identified 70 birth mothers, 160 prospective adoptive parents across 24 states.
33:20After thoroughly analyzing Tara Lee's financial activity, we discover Tara has yielded $2.1 million in proceeds from her fraudulent
33:36adoptions.
33:37Tara Lee profited millions of dollars by exploiting extremely vulnerable people.
33:46And she spent the money on essentially spoiling herself with jewelry and purses and shoes.
33:53Luxury watches, bracelets, all kinds of jewelry.
33:58Really, really expensive items.
34:01There were just stacks of them.
34:05Of course, that money was intended to go to birth mothers.
34:09And knowing that she spent it on herself is quite appalling.
34:24After the FBI raided her house, Kyle and I were both in shock.
34:30And being that we were her friend, we called her.
34:35She talked her way out of and explained her way out of everything that came up.
34:42And we told everybody she was innocent.
34:47We still trusted her.
34:50So we stayed on board.
34:53And Tara said, listen, we can find you another baby.
35:07At this point in time, in our new attempts to adopt a second child, we've already paid $38,000.
35:15But we just kind of went along because, you know, she was looking out for us.
35:22We got a call from Tara and we got matched with another birth mom.
35:35So we were six weeks in the hospital.
35:37It was absolute torture.
35:39We had a sick baby.
35:42And there was delay in the legal part of it.
35:45We had been there for so long.
35:48I was terrified that he was going to be taken away.
35:53We wanted another child.
35:55We're going to grow our family.
35:58She stopped communicating with us.
36:00It was impossible to get her to answer any questions.
36:05So we thought Tara had no intention of us adopting our son.
36:11She was texting with us.
36:13There was communication back and forth.
36:15We had trusted her through this whole year.
36:18She was our friend.
36:26We got the call.
36:30Our attorneys called us.
36:34I truly knew in that moment that my life would never be the same.
36:42We took a call from the lawyer.
36:46I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a nervous wreck.
36:50Our attorneys said, are you ready to come home with a baby?
37:02Tears, you know, emotions, crying.
37:07Sorry.
37:11I think he was only six pounds when he left the hospital.
37:14And so we got a little, you know, his little coming home outfit.
37:21We were so happy and it was beautiful.
37:31The lawyer told us that our fourth match was also a scam.
37:40And it was over.
37:46And now we just had to pick up the pieces.
38:03She didn't really care about any of us.
38:05She is a brilliant monster.
38:16She didn't really care about any of us.
38:17Tara Lee faced a federal judge today as she was charged with wire fraud.
38:23We arrested Tara Lee.
38:25We indicted her with 23 counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
38:32This 31-page criminal complaint against her was just unsealed.
38:36The allegations in here are shocking.
38:40Lee pleaded guilty to charges of fabricated matches and misappropriation.
38:47Lee pleaded guilty to charges of adoption service fees.
38:51The judge was angry.
38:54He sentenced her to 10 years in prison.
38:57But he said to her,
38:59I wish I could give you life.
39:07It was my hope and the hope of our whole investigative team that that sentence would bring some sort of
39:14solace to the victims, some sort of peace of mind.
39:22We did manage to adopt two more children after this.
39:25We completed our family that way.
39:30We actually did end up adopting a second child through a different legitimate agency.
39:37Baby girl.
39:45After a few years, we got another call.
39:48Our birth mom was pregnant again and she asked us to adopt her baby again.
39:54And now we have a two-and-a-half-year-old little boy.
40:01I talk to them all the time.
40:03I'm involved in the kids' lives.
40:05They see my mom.
40:07They see my family.
40:10I've never met anybody better than Teresa and Michael.
40:14They're like the best people I've ever met in my life.
40:19Hi.
40:20How are you?
40:21Good. How are you?
40:22Good. Great to see you.
40:23Good to see you.
40:25We've got close with a lot of people.
40:27Teresa and Mike and Adam and Kyle.
40:32Oh, they got me.
40:34All of a sudden, we had people that understood and could relate and were going through the same thing.
40:42All of the heartbreak that we all went through.
40:44I could not have gotten through this without any of you guys.
40:48I'm going to cry.
40:49I really couldn't have.
40:50Right off the bat, it felt natural and comfortable.
40:52I never felt awkward with you guys at all.
40:56All the kids call each other cousins and just one big happy family.
41:03Yeah.
41:04I wouldn't have it any other way.
41:06Yeah.
41:07She didn't destroy us.
41:09She didn't end all of our dreams and hopes.
41:12We made those still happen.
41:16Next time on Feds.
41:19I said, I need you to open the vault and get out $200,000.
41:23Do what we ask you to and nobody's going to get hurt.
41:26This was clearly different than every bank robbery that I've ever worked.
41:30She said, it's my job on the line.
41:33I said, I don't care about your job.
41:35I don't care about your job.
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