Countywide : Charges Reinstated in Adoption Dispute

An appellate court in Santa Ana on Thursday reinstated felony grand theft charges against a North Dakota woman accused of taking money from two couples after promising both that they could adopt the baby she was carrying.

Joann Marie Uhrich, 20, has admitted that she accepted $1,250 from one couple for apartment expenses and then accepted $600 from the second couple a few months later, promising them the same baby. Although official records on her pregnancy appear to be inconsistent, she says that she miscarried the baby when she spent two weeks in the Orange County Jail on a traffic charge.

The 4th District Court of Appeal stated Thursday that Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride erred in dismissing the charges after a legal dispute arose over whether she should be tried only on misdemeanor charges which had been filed and then later dismissed.

“This is a sad case of a young woman who does not believe in abortion getting caught up in something she really didn’t know much about,” Deputy Public Defender Marri Derby said.

While in North Dakota, Uhrich read an ad placed by an attorney seeking pregnant women who wanted to give up their babies for adoption. Derby said the attorney flew her to California two years ago and put her in touch with an Orange County couple.

Prosecutors, who have questioned whether Uhrich was pregnant at all, say she promised the baby to a second couple after taking expense money from the first.

But Derby claims that Uhrich simply wasn’t very sophisticated about the arrangements and only knew that she preferred that the second couple have the baby because she liked them better.