Lauryn Galindo, a Hanalei woman who arraigned hundreds of adoptions of Cambodian children for American parents, pleaded guilty to three federal charges yesterday in Seattle and will lose her Hanalei Bay home as the result of the plea agreement. Galindo,
Lauryn Galindo, a Hanalei woman who arraigned hundreds of adoptions of Cambodian children for American parents, pleaded guilty to three federal charges yesterday in Seattle and will lose her Hanalei Bay home as the result of the plea agreement.
Galindo, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit visa fraud and to launder money, as well as a charge that she evaded bank reporting requirements by purchasing a number of cashier’s checks from Kaua‘i banks.
At her scheduled Sept. 24 sentencing, Galindo could face as much as 20 years in prison, but federal public defender Colin Feiman said he anticipates a “significantly lower” sentence. She will also forfeit all proceeds derived from the adoptions, including her Weke Road home and her 2000 Jaguar automobile.
“We engaged in serious negotiations with the government. We came to a settlement Ms. Galindo is very happy with,” said federal public defender Jay Stansell. “We are looking forward to the sentencing hearing…where we will present the full context of her life and work, and her (humanitarian efforts) in Cambodia.”
As for whether she will facilitate adoptions again, “she continuously hopes to, depending on how things turn out” in court, Galindo’s Los Angeles-based media consultant, Steve Jaffe said. “She is continuing to do humanitarian work as a consultant for Airline Ambassadors, a non-profit which relates to travel to Cambodia, Thailand, and Bali.”
Galindo did not speak to reporters outside court in Seattle.
“There are a million things she’d like to say, but we won’t let her,” Feiman said.
At issue are 18 adoptions — among hundreds in which Galindo was involved since the early 1990s — arraigned between 1997 and 2001.
Galindo represented the children as orphans when she knew they had “at least one living parent,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Lord said.
Other facts — names, dates of birth, relatives and physical characteristics — also were misrepresented to U.S. officials, the plea agreement said. The money-laundering charge concerns more than $153,000 in wire transfers to Cambodian accounts from adoptive parents.
The third charge, called “structuring,” involves three cashier’s checks totaling $30,000 Galindo purchased at the First Hawaiian Bank in Princeville, and another at the bank’s Lihu‘e branch on August 7, 1998. Galindo, prosecutors say, purchased the four different checks to avoid mandatory bank reporting of any transaction over $10,000.
Galindo and her sister, Lynn Devin of Mercer Island, Wash., ran Seattle International Adoptions, arranging hundreds of adoptions from Cambodia in the 1990’s but closed by the federal government late last year. Devin pleaded guilty in December to falsifying documents to obtain U.S. visas for Cambodian children. She is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 6.
According to court documents, Galindo, her sister and SIA charged most adoptive parents between $10,500 and $11,500 for assistance in obtaining the proper visas. Of that fee, $2,500 would normally go straight to SIA and $5,500 would be wired to a bank account in Cambodia controlled by Devin and Galindo.
Of the money that went to Cambodia, $3,500 was used to pay Cambodian government officials to facilitate the adoptions, and $2,000 would cover Galindo’s expenses.
Usually a final payment of $3,500 went directly to Galindo.
Galindo entered the plea because “she wants to move on,” federal public defender Jay Stansell said after the hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler. The charges were a result of a two-year investigation.
At sentencing, “we look forward to putting the case in the context of her life’s work,” Stansell said. “We want people to know who she is and what this work was.”
He declined to elaborate, but said some adoptive parents may testify.
Galindo and Devin have agreed that all illegal profits they made through the adoption agency will be forfeited, McKay said, but Galindo will be allowed to live in her Hanalei home and use her Jaguar until she reports to the Bureau of Prisons.
According to court records, K-4 Partners, a company which is controlled by Devin and her husband, owns the Hanalei home. The Jaguar is owned by a Samoan company, Lakshmi, Ltd., which is owned by Galindo. Bank accounts in Washington, Honolulu, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Singapore owned by the two companies or the two women were also forfeited.
Theiler scheduled a hearing Friday on a defense request to allow Galindo to go to Thailand and Cambodia on a seven- to 10-day mission before sentencing. Stansell said Galindo wanted to make the trip as a volunteer “for the sole purpose of humanitarian work.”
“She wanted to be doing something good for the community,” he said.
Prosecutors want her to stay in Hawai‘i or Washington State.
Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest nations. The United States and some other western nations began barring international adoptions from Cambodia in December 2001.
Among those who used Seattle International Adoptions was actress Angelina Jolie, who adopted a little boy she named Maddox.
There is no evidence that the actress did anything wrong or that the boy was not an orphan — one of several hundred Cambodian children adopted by Americans each year until the ban was enacted.
The U.S. government plans to take no action that would jeopardize the residency status of Cambodian children in the United States who were adopted through the agency, U.S. Attorney John McKay said in a statement. Children in the 18 adoptions were identified only by initials in court documents.
Peggy Anderson, AP writer in Seattle contributed to this report.
Tom Finnegan, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 x. 226.
