So I’ve been quiet, kept my head down, worked behind the scenes on some stuff, and mostly adjusting to our big move to Mexico. Life has been good for the most part. So the past couple weeks pretty much ends that. Keeping quiet has allowed too many people to be taken advantage of. I thought most of the stink had blown off, but someone decided to till the manure pile… and it wasn’t us!
It started with this post on Fathers’ Angels Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1022043177860226&id=677166982347849
Then I was pulled into a chat with this guy, Rob Manzaneres: https://www.facebook.com/helpRobManzanares?fref=ts
And then there was another post in Birth Fathers United (https://www.facebook.com/groups/197329630311585/ ) that has since been deleted (thankfully) that railed against my friends Heidi and Michelle, and a secret Facebook group I belong to that discusses various child welfare cases.
But let’s be clear here, this post really isn’t about Rob or Tabitha of Father’s angles. It is really about Carri Stearns. Rob is a guy with a landmark thwarted father adoption case and Tabitha does fundraising for thwarted dads (and her lady parts). Carri Stearns is a dad thwarter extraordinaire. Seriously, the woman has some mad baby daddy making and child support collecting skilz. So we’re all baffled that she’s even allowed to play on their team. Yeah Carri has an adoption case, where she took the birthmother money and tried to rescind her relinquishment too late. I think that maybe the window to rescind shortened since the last time I am told she did this, but I haven’t had the time to research it (Anyone know when OH law changed to 72 hours?) If anyone speaks out or questions Carri, you basically risk your professional life, your family life and any portion of your life you hold dear because she will come at you, and so will the gullible rubes that believe her crap or ardent anti adoption people.
It seems like it is Heidi and Michelle that get the brunt of it. They even get attacked for things that I have said, both privately and publically. Heidi USED to run social media campaigns and fundraisers for parents trying to get their kids back from an adoption situation. She even ran a very successful Go Fund Me campaign for Carri. I stress USED TO, because between the #BringSonyaHome and #BringCamdenHome campaigns attacking her and her personal life and family, and Carri out right using her and backstabbing her, she is DONE! Michelle is an adoptee that’s been touched by foster care growing up. She at one time befriended Carri, but she kept catching Carri in lies, and investigated further. Me, I am a former foster kid, once teenage mom, and a POS Birthmother that lost her child to the foster care system about a decade ago. I have done advocacy and lobby work for foster care.
So, onto the manure pile.
As I said, Heidi was running a very successful go fund me. She also had a few others for dads. When she does fundraisers, she NEVER gives money to the parents. If it is for legal fees, she sends the money onto their attorney. I got concerned. Here she is taking in all this money, she is a single mom, and she was going to owe taxes for all this money people are giving her for OTHER people. And I a pestered her and pestered her about it. Finally, after showing her enough quotes from the IRS she acted, she told Carri and the dads sorry, and she took down the fundraisers. Carri harassed her to have control of the social media campaigns Heidi was running, Heidi relented and ultimately was happy to wash her hands of the whole thing (or so she thought).
Around the same time, Carri and Michelle had a falling out. Michelle asked if one of her children was born while she was in prison. Her prison sentence and the birthday for one of her kids appears to align. Michelle was also being contacted left and right by people that had been scammed by her and people that she knows in her offline community. It was apparent that very little in Claudia D’Arcy’s blog about her situation was actually true. Michelle shared documents privately and only explained the contents within our secret group. These documents contained accusations of abuse made to the police a couple of Carri’s children. We find out that one of those children hasn’t lived with Carri for a long time.
Okay, I deal with foster care parents all the time. You were accused of abuse, okay… if it happened why, how and most of all what are you doing to keep this from happening again? That’s not what happened here. Her millionaire dad was still alive, so she lawyered up and was able to hang onto most of her kids.
Most of all, we deserved to know the truth before we committed our hard earned money and our names and our time and our energy to her cause. People left her cause, with reason. I wasn’t all that attached to the case, but I still saw the error. So the people that were running her secret pages and her online petition pulled out, and those were taken down. AFTER Heidi had already given up control over them.
Heidi is then accused of dismantling the social media and quitting the fundraising over the abuse allegations. Heidi had already washed her hands of all that. Then it is all over the Twitter-verse that she was skimming the fundraisers. Which while, Go Fund Me takes a big chunk, Heidi sent every dime to the attorney on record and has receipts to show for it.
Then Heidi gets a phone call from Tabitha at Father’s Angels. Tabitha offers to send Carri a 1099 for the $12k or so that Heidi raised. For Heidi this would have been great, she could have gotten out from underneath paying the taxes, and the contributions would have been re-characterized as tax exempt and tax deductible (or so we thought). She was going to discuss it with the other Father’s Angels board members and get back to her.
A few days later, Tabitha unfriends Heidi and quits taking calls. There are tweets issued saying Heidi is trying to commit tax fraud. They are going report her to the IRS.
So essentially, Heidi raised money for Carri and then threatened to call the IRS if she did not claim the money on her personal tax return. It turned out okay for Heidi, but she did have to pay a CPA this year to do her taxes. Normally, being that she is a single working mother, tax preparation would be free. While it didn’t cost her with taxes, she did incur the CPA fees and likely reduced her tax return.
Now Carri and Tabitha are now inseparable in the online Adoptionland. If I were to speculate, it is because Carri comes from an affluent background. Up until her father died, she never really wanted for anything. When he passed, most of his entire estate went to his widow, Carri’s step mother. Even if she doesn’t have access to her dad’s coffers, she still has access to that society and that avenue of fundraising.
So this makes the post from Father’s Angles about their charity status very curious. None of us had realized that they weren’t a 501c3 tax exempt organization. They have to pay taxes on their proceeds. Which also means if you have given to them in the past, you can’t deduct it on your taxes if you itemize. Most of the people making donations aren’t in the position to itemize anyways.
Then there is Rob. I have called him a douche, he has called himself an ass hole over this, but hasn’t given us the satisfaction of even acknowledging the validity of our grievances with Carri. Really my problem with him has nothing to do with his adoption case, and more to do with his way he treats us.
I actually gave a little bit to his legal fund. I felt bad for him and could relate because his daughter was being forced into a kinship situation. While it isn’t letter of the law type stuff, I know from experience, it is harder to unravel an adoption plan if the child is placed with a relative.
The beef with Rob happened when he unexpectedly unfriended Heidi and a handful of friends, and booted them out of the Birth Father’s United group. We find out that Carri has been telling him that we are working actively to take down her case and threatening her children. Which couldn’t be more untrue. We gossip about her, yes we do. But we do it privately. Really, she doesn’t have a case, and has done more to damage her own reputation and chances of rescinding her relinquishment herself (with help of her blogger friends).
He did that without even getting their side of the story. For that he is a douche.
Heidi for the most part wants to move on, she tries not to talk about Carri, and she never goes out of her way to say anything. She just doesn’t have time for this nonsense. She has tried to wash her hands of this on numerous occasions.
Michelle, she has been more open about Carri on twitter. It is mostly slut shaming and push back on what they are saying about her. She wants people to get to the truth. Adoptionland is divided because of Carri, she lost near and dear friends over this. This was her community before this. She was hurt when Carri’s supporters came after her publically. They contacted her kids, and made fun of the death of her husband, even accusing her of killing him. The Birth Mothers took their frustration with Adoption out on an adoptee. An adoptee and former foster child, just like “Camden”.
Me, I’ve sat as quiet as I can. Mostly discussing this in private forums. However the Carri detractors staying silent has allowed her to take advantage and damage too many people. So No MORE! I guess I will have to look forward to posting their retaliation for this blog.
(PS, I am sure you will find typos, please let me know and I will fix them)
