Woman Battles For Custody of Her Baby After Falling Victim to Adoption Fraud
Kristy Gaffney thought she met the love of her life. Now she's fighting for custody of her own child after the man she thought was Mr. Right had her sign over parental rights so he could adopt the baby with his wife.
29-year-old Gaffney says she met a man who called himself Ed on a dating website. She told NBC10 that she didn't like him at first but eventually agreed to meet with him. Their first date was in a restaurant outside of Philadelphia and they had many more after that.
Ed told her that he was a divorced business man who worked for the C.I.A and that he was related to one of the wealthiest families in the country.
"He said my last name is Dupont," Gaffney recounted. "And I said related to THE Duponts? And he said yes."
As the relationship progressed, Ed began to bring up marriage and kids. He revealed that he didn't have children because his wife had trouble conceiving.
When Gaffney found herself pregnant, she says that Ed initially demanded she get an abortion but soon changed tactics. After the birth of the baby, he asked her to sign papers to ensure he would have rights as the father.
Little did she know that she was actually signing adoption papers. Then one day, he took the baby and didn't return. That's when Gaffney says he dropped the bombshell:
The truth was that Ed wasn't Ed at all. He was Emmitt Dippold, still married to his wife, and in the final stages of adopting Gaffney's child.
"He told me that the paperwork I actually signed was me giving up the rights, not to him to have his rights. It was me giving up my rights so his wife could adopt my baby, and I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I couldn’t even believe that someone was capable of something like that,” she told reporters.
Gaffney took Dippold and his wife to court and a judge overturned the adoption based on fraud. But the story isn't over yet, as the Dippolds have filed an appeal.
Watch NBC 10's full interview with Gaffney below:
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