Reader’s corner:
Baby ring uncovered during the Duplessis era
from: Barbara Wanless
to: Adoption in Quebec: The Right to Know
Montreal Gazette February 13, 1954.
An international ring dealing in black market babies has been using Montreal as its base of operations for 10 years. Montreal lawyer Herman Buller was taken into custody at Dorval airport yesterday as he prepared to board an overseas airliner with his wife and parents for a visit to Israel.
Buller was arraigned before Judge Gerald Almond on two charges: « Having falsified the entries into a birth certificate, » and « giving counsel and advice in connection with an indictable offence. »
Ball was set – and paid – at $2,000 and preliminary hearing fixed for Feb. 19. Buller, 33, a member of the Montreal bar, pleaded not guilty to the charges through his lawyer, Myer Gross, Q.C., who told the judge he was shocked by the publicity given to this case. « Mr. Buller was freed of a similar charge two years ago. I am convinced that he will be acquitted on this charge. »
Evidence so far uncovered reveals that more than 1,000 babies born in Montreal have been sold illegally to families in the United States. Most of the infants went to persons in New York, but others went to points as distant as Cleveland, Chicago and Florida.
The price for the children ranged anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000. In some instances it was slightly higher because of added risks taken by members of the ring to deliver the infants. Most of the racket was based on the falsification of birth certificates, but in some cases infants were merely smuggled across the border without any documents.
Police said that most of the children involved were of French-Canadian origin but were sold to Jewish families in the United States. This is in complete contradiction to Quebec adoption laws which state specifically that adoptions must be made by parents of the same religion as the child.
George W. Hill, Q.c., Crown Prosecutor in charge of the case for the Quebec attorney general, said the disclosures would probably result in a complete remodelling of the existing adoption laws. Mr. Hill has been working on the case for several months now and recently returned from New York after conferring with the district attorney’s office.
Accompanying him were Det. Sgt. Edgar Belair, of the Montreal Police Department and Dets. Jules Arsenault and Michel Deltorquio of the Provincial Police. Ernest A. Mitler, of the N.Y. district attorney’s office is in Montreal to assist.
Mr. Miller said he has personally interviewed at least 70 persons in New York who have admitted « buying » babies illegally in Montreal. Mr. Miller said that most of the families were unaware that they were doing anything illegal, but they « were pretty gullible. »
The ring is believed to have worked as follows:
A family wishing to adopt a child in New York would contact a lawyer there who would subsequently refer them to a Montreal source. The couple would come to Montreal and the financial details of the transaction would be agreed upon.
Then the ring would obtain a baby from an establishment for unwed mothers.
In some cases the real mothers were given small amounts of money but in others the babies were merely taken without their consent. Once obtained, the baby would be delivered to its destination in the United States, usually in one of two ways. One was for a girl courier to literally smuggle the child across the border by « bluffing » her way past immigration authorities.
The second method was by providing the baby with a visa and passport that had been obtained here by falsification of names.
Maurice Duplessis, Premier of Quebec, said that he had been aware of the racket for some time and his department had lost no time in investigating.
He personally sent two Crown prosecutors to New York to conduct interviews. The Montreal Council of Social Agencies said that they were not totally surprised by the ring, but its size and scope were not suspected. The council stated it knew « frightful irregularities » in baby placement have occurred and it has frequently spoken out against such abuse. « No human baby at any age should be considered a commodity » a spokesman for the council said.
More arrests are expected in what official sources describe as a $3,000,000 ring of doctors, lawyers, nurses, social workers and others.
The work of the black market operators was so well worked out, that some doctors and lawyers became innocent dupes in the transactions.
Feb. 15: Unnamed woman arrested and files seized from her Laval street home in connection with baby ring. The files and other documentation contain information about some of the ring’s « customers ». The woman is expected to be released, but police plan to pick up about a dozen more women this week.
Only two men have been formally charged. The are lawyers Hennan Buller and Louis Glazer. Glazer pled not guilty to five charges: 2 counts of conspiracy in connection with birth registrations, 2 charges of falsification and forgery and one of uttering. He was released on $850 bail.
Two women and a baby were picked up Friday night after a policewoman « bought » the baby for $3,500 in an east-end home. Police said Glazer was present when the negotiations took place, he was arrested the next day.
The women, a mother and daughter who ran a nursing home, were released after questioning – police have not decided whether to lay charges. Police are still trying to find the mother of the baby.
Additional article Feb 15: Unfamiliarity with Canadian adoption laws on the part of prospective « buyers » in the United States has been advanced as one of the chief reasons the racket was able to flourish. Investigation has revealed that most of the families who « adopted » babies in Montreal did so believing the procedure was legal.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the case was the manner in which the ring prayed on the mothers of illegitimate babies. Hundreds of these unfortunate women became pawns of the organization simply because they did not know of anywhere else to turn. Montreal has long been the centre to which most unmarried mothers in the province come.
Members of the black market ring also took advantage of the laxness of border restrictions and used the sympathies of immigration authorities to deliver the children to the US.
Another ploy used by the ring was to illegally obtain birth certificates. A woman would swear she was the mother of another woman’s illegitimate child and obtain a birth certificate for it.
Once it was obtained, the birth certificate and the child were turned over to the ring and the baby was adopted by U.S. families through regular court procedures.
Most of the babies went to Jewish families although they were of
French-Canadian origin. The ring often used Jewish girls in the city to pose as mothers of the children to get birth certificates.
Mis en ligne par Jacques P. BEAUGRAND
2017 FEB 14