Mary Bonn Sentenced

October 10, 2007

Mary Bonn Sentenced

After eight months since her arrest and the various firestorms that have followed it, the Mary Bonn saga comes to an end. In a long sentencing hearing that went on for hours, she was sentenced to 366 days in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, and fines and restitution of $10,000. The court was filled with Mary's supporters, families who had happlily adopted through her. And the adoptive father in the case she was charged for appeared before the judge as well. We'll get more info on what happened, the judges comments, etc. soon.

Click on more for updates Oct 10

While this may be the end of the saga for Mary, she will have a legacy full of disparate thoughts. She helped create hundreds of families successfully. There are many who sing her praises based on their experience working with her. There are also many who have broken hearts from their experience, some still struggling today to get out of the mess of adoptions started throgh Mary. There are those, like the family in this case, whose description to their kids of how they came to join their family is not as simple as the one I'll tell mine.

Updated Wed afternoon:

I have received a report from what went on in the courtroom. Mary had about 20-30 folks there to support her. The prosecution attempted some sort of additional charge for violating a position of trust but the judge refused it. Mary had many suupporters testify. I will not name any any adoptive families as I don't think that would be appropriate. But the following adoption service provders did testify in her defense:

1.) Sue Hedberg of Celebrate Children International

2.) Tamara Hillstrom of A Family Journey -

3.) Tracy Bonn of International Adoption Service

4.) Felciano Carrillo of Hogar Nuevo Amanecer

5.) Javier Villatoro - Guatemalan attorney

The adoptive father was on the stand for an hour or so.

In the end the judge said that it was not his job to decide who said what when or to whom, it was his job to follow the law. He said that Mary's actions of deceit, forgery, etc was not excusable and unbelievable.

Here is the document with the sentencing: Download file

Posted by Kevin at October 10, 2007 07:25 AM

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