A woman in Tampa got arrested on Friday after police said she scammed a couple trying to adopt her child.
Jessica Bottoms, 32, allegedly collected money from the couple knowing she was not going to give up the baby, WFTS reports.
Tampa police said Bottoms agreed to put her unborn child up for adoption in December 2015. When the child was born early, Bottoms did not tell the couple and kept collecting money from them.
The victims found out the baby was born two weeks early, and they had already given Bottoms more than $1,000 in those two weeks, according to WFTS.
In total, Bottoms got paid more than $7,200 in cash, gift cards and other services for the adoption plan.
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The couple said they were aware that they could lose money in the process if the mother backed out, but contacted authorities when they learned they were still paying Bottoms while the baby was already born.
"We understood that she had the option to parent and we respected that," the couple, who remains unidentified, told WFTS. "But we didn't want her to do this to another family."
Bottoms was released from the county jail on a $2,000 bond, arrest records show.
Read more at WFTS.
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