PORTLAND – The attorney for a Westbrook woman who is charged in an adoption scam has told a judge that his client hopes to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors at a hearing on March 19.

Misty Sargent was indicted last summer on a felony theft charge. Prosecutors say she promised her unborn baby to couples in California and New Jersey, took money from them, then gave the child to a couple from New York.

”We’ve had plea discussions,” attorney Joel Vincent said Friday in Cumberland County Superior Court. ”We hope to have a global resolution on that day.”

Besides the theft charge, Sargent faces a criminal charge of violating the terms of her probation.

Police claim Sargent took money from people who wanted to sublet her apartment in Westbrook, when she was being evicted by her landlord, Vincent said.

A birth mother in Maine is allowed to receive money from an adoptive couple or agency for health expenses and certain living expenses, but prosecutors say Sargent broke the rules.

”We’re saying that she either did not use that money for those purposes, or that she was receiving expenses from multiple parties,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Norbert said after Sargent’s indictment in July.

Sargent is accused of stealing between $1,000 and $10,000; Norbert has declined to comment more specifically on a dollar figure or what Sargent might have done with the money.

Sargent gave birth in May of last year.

She gave up the child for adoption to the same couple who had adopted a child from her a few years ago, Vincent said.

 Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at: tmaxwell@pressherald.com

 

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