#paul werner

Jan Dibbets: Audio-Visuelle Dokumentationen. Korrekturen der Perspektive. Umgeschlagenes Rasenstück. Fotoserie Flut. Veränderung des Territoriums eines Rotkehlchens. Afsluitidjk, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, 1968 [midcenturyclassical. Studio Bruno Tonini, Gussago (BS). © Jan Dibbets]

Foreigners give babies to ‘Moonies’ The Anniston Star January 23, 1989

MOBILE (AP) – An investigator with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department remains baffled by three adoption cases involving foreign couples that a Unification Church member said was motivated simply by love. “Why have these people come from these different countries to give their children to these particular people?” said Lark Dodd. But Ms. Dodd said her investigation into the cases was closed since no wrongdoing was discovered. Two of the foreign couples who traveled to Mobile to have their babies gave custody of the newborns to Unification Church members. A third couple returned to Canada with their infant son after the state launched an investigation. An attorney for the Unification church said the church has not arranged the adoptions or instructed members to have babies and give them to church members. “To the best of my knowledge these relationships were developed by the individuals themselves,” with no guidance from the church, said David Hagar, an attorney at the Unification Church’s New York office. Workers at Spring Hill Memorial Hospital told The Birmingham News that the Canadian woman refused to look at the 9-pound, 12-ounce baby boy she gave birth to on Sept. 21 and told them another woman would pick up the infant.

The bewilderment of hospital officials heightened when a 58-year-old woman appeared, saying she would take custody. “They had no adoption papers,” said Brenda Hutchison, clinical supervisor of the hospital’s pediatric department. “We had nothing that said this woman could have the baby.” While pondering the situation, hospital workers recalled a similar case just two weeks before. A woman from France had a baby boy and said she was giving the baby as a gift to a woman who would pick the child up. That case did have legal adoption papers. “They said, ‘God told me to do this’,” Ms. Hutchison said. “They both said these babies were gifts.” Interviews with law enforcement, hospital and Unification Church officials revealed the adoption cases involved the “Moonies” – followers of Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon. Church members in Bayou La Batre, a hub for Unification Church activity in Alabama, paid for couples to fly to Mobile from Austria, Canada and France to have their babies born as U.S. citizens. Then church members in the coastal community filed for adoption, authorities said. “There’s nothing strange or unusual about the church,” said Martin Porter, president and chairman of Master Marine Inc., a Unification Church-owned shipbuilding business in Bayou La Batre.

Porter said that includes bringing church members from other countries to Mobile to have their babies and give them to Porter and Master Marine’s vice president, Paul Werner. 

Porter explained the motive for such a gift simply: “Why would you do that (give a baby up for adoption to a specific person)?” he asked. “It would be because you have a very deep love for the person. It would only be because they wanted to.” In addition to the babies born in September that Porter and Werner filed to adopt, four months earlier Werner filed for adoption of a baby boy whose mother came from Austria and gave birth at the University of South Alabama Hospital, said Ms. Dodd.

The three adoption cases prompted the state Department of Human Resources to investigate. 

The couple from Canada were forced by a court order to remain in the United States while the case was investigated and their baby was put in state custody. After nearly two months, the couple dropped the adoption procedure.

“They were just blown away… by the legal machinery that was going to come at them,” said Hagar, who flew to Mobile at Werner’s request: “Any time a petition for adoption is filed, we are obliged to make an investigation and report to the (probate) judge,” said Jerry Milner, supervisor of the Department of Human Resources’ office of adoptions. He declined to comment on the case specifically. But it appears the two babies adopted and living with Porter and Werner will remain in their custody, Ms. Dodd said. She said all people involved in the adoption cases were Unification Church members who knew each other personally and could have arranged the adoptions outside official church channels. It would be illegal for the church to play a role in arranging the adoption, she said. 

Ms. Dodd also said Werner told her that he and Porter paid the expenses of the couples who had their babies in Mobile. To pay them a fee would violate state law against child-selling, she said.

The Anniston Star


January 23, 1989


MOBILE (AP) – An investigator with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department remains baffled by three adoption cases involving foreign couples that a Unification Church member said was motivated simply by love.



“Why have these people come from these different countries to give their children to these particular people?” said Lark Dodd.



But Ms. Dodd said her investigation into the cases was closed since no wrongdoing was discovered.



Two of the foreign couples who traveled to Mobile to have their babies gave custody of the newborns to Unification Church members. A third couple returned to Canada with their infant son after the state launched an investigation.



An attorney for the Unification church said the church has not arranged the adoptions or instructed members to have babies and give them to church members.



“To the best of my knowledge these relationships were developed by the individuals themselves,” with no guidance from the church, said David Hagar, an attorney at the Unification Church’s New York office.



Workers at Spring Hill Memorial Hospital told The Birmingham News that the Canadian woman refused to look at the 9-pound, 12-ounce baby boy she gave birth to on Sept. 21 and told them another woman would pick up the infant.

The bewilderment of hospital officials heightened when a 58-year-old woman appeared, saying she would take custody.



“They had no adoption papers,” said Brenda Hutchison, clinical supervisor of the hospital’s pediatric department. “We had nothing that said this woman could have the baby.”



While pondering the situation, hospital workers recalled a similar case just two weeks before. A woman from France had a baby boy and said she was giving the baby as a gift to a woman who would pick the child up. That case did have legal adoption papers.



“They said, ‘God told me to do this’,” Ms. Hutchison said. “They both said these babies were gifts.”



Interviews with law enforcement, hospital and Unification Church officials revealed the adoption cases involved the “Moonies” – followers of Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon.



Church members in Bayou La Batre, a hub for Unification Church activity in Alabama, paid for couples to fly to Mobile from Austria, Canada and France to have their babies born as U.S. citizens. Then church members in the coastal community filed for adoption, authorities said.



“There’s nothing strange or unusual about the church,” said Martin Porter, president and chairman of Master Marine Inc., a Unification Church-owned shipbuilding business in Bayou La Batre.

Porter said that includes bringing church members from other countries to Mobile to have their babies and give them to Porter and Master Marine’s vice president, Paul Werner.

Porter explained the motive for such a gift simply:
 “Why would you do that (give a baby up for adoption to a specific person)?” he asked. “It would be because you have a very deep love for the person. It would only be because they wanted to.”



In addition to the babies born in September that Porter and Werner filed to adopt, four months earlier Werner filed for adoption of a baby boy whose mother came from Austria and gave birth at the University of South Alabama Hospital, said Ms. Dodd.

The three adoption cases prompted the state Department of Human Resources to investigate.

The couple from Canada were forced by a court order to remain in the United States while the case was investigated and their baby was put in state custody. After nearly two months, the couple dropped the adoption procedure.

“They were just blown away… by the legal machinery that was going to come at them,” said Hagar, who flew to Mobile at Werner’s request:

“

Any time a petition for adoption is filed, we are obliged to make an investigation and report to the (probate) judge,” said Jerry Milner, supervisor of the Department of Human Resources’ office of adoptions. He declined to comment on the case specifically.



But it appears the two babies adopted and living with Porter and Werner will remain in their custody, Ms. Dodd said.



She said all people involved in the adoption cases were Unification Church members who knew each other personally and could have arranged the adoptions outside official church channels. It would be illegal for the church to play a role in arranging the adoption, she said.

Ms. Dodd also said Werner told her that he and Porter paid the expenses of the couples who had their babies in Mobile. To pay them a fee would violate state law against child-selling, she said.

“There’s no financial remuneration passing to anybody,” Hagar said. “This isn’t a baby auction.”



Alabama Watchman Fellowship Director Craig Branch, whose evangelical ministry monitors the Unification Church, contends the adoptions must have been orchestrated by the church.