One lie too many caught up with a Rome woman who authorities say faked her pregnancy in order to bilk money from prospective adoptive parents.
Rome police this week charged Cherieshia Sharnese Hayes with two counts of theft by deception and one count of first-degree forgery. She is accused of swindling roughly $7,000 from two sets of parents who had been promised a child who didn't exist.
Hayes, using the name Sharika Wilson, contacted Adoption Connections Inc. in Andover, Kan., to place her baby with new parents. Those families agreed to assist her financially until she delivered the child, said Dick Peckham, the agency's director and general counsel.
Hayes told Adoption Connections she was due in October, but as the date approached, she began asking for more money from an Indiana couple set to become the baby's parents. A Texas couple who was originally set to adopt the newborn broke off contact with Hayes after she continued asking them for money they didn't have, Peckham said.
"She began to talk with our social workers, telling them her baby wasn't doing well in the womb," he said. Hayes said the baby had a heart defect and also claimed doctors at Emory University Hospital told her she would not survive childbirth.
Peckham began making inquiries and discovered no one at Emory was treating a Sharika Wilson. He then called Floyd County's Department of Family and Child Services who visited Hayes, aka Wilson, and reported she did not appear pregnant, Peckham said.
After some more digging, DFCS discovered Hayes was forging her landlord's signature on a rental form she had provided to the family in Indiana in which she claimed to be paying $100 more than her actual rent.
“She told them her rent was $500 and not the $400 she was paying. She was pocketing the cash,” Rome Police Det. Jeff Richerson told the Rome News-Tribune.
It was that lie that eventually led to her arrest, Richerson told the paper. The detective was unavailable for comment Friday.
Meanwhile, the Indiana family that was set to adopt Hayes' baby is "devastated" by the news, Peckham said. A devoutly religious family, they organized prayer groups and even fasted in hopes of saving the fetus, which, they were told by Hayes, had a heart defect.
"They were very emotionally tied to this child," Peckham said. "These are vulnerable parents who want children and are often so desperate they'll do anything necessary to help the baby."
The Indiana family ended up sending Hayes more than $4,000, including money to repair an air conditioner.
Hayes told police she was using the money to regain custody of three of her children who are in DFCS custody. Hayes has five children in all and Peckham said he was told the other two are now likely to be taken from their 23-year-old mother.
The DFCS worker assigned to the case did not respond to a request for comment.
Peckham said he's seen a marked increased in adoption scams as the economy has worsened. Hayes wasn't the first and likely won't be the last, he said.
"We are at the mercy of the emotions and morals of the young women we're trying to help," he told the AJC.
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