Inset: Jody Hall (Hays County Jail). Background: Tarrant County Jail (Google Maps)
A Texas adoption attorney allegedly tried to buy two babies from incarcerated women by putting money in their commissary accounts.
Jody Hall, 68, is facing two charges of sale or purchase of a child, a third-degree felony punishable by 10 years in prison. According to an arrest affidavit posted by Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS, detectives from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office obtained communications between Hall and a 29-year-old pregnant inmate via her jail tablet starting on March 13.
In the message, Hall introduces herself as the “Director of the Adoption Agency that you have signed with” and asks her to call her. Hall adds that she has “cash for your commissary.” Over the next two months Hall continued to speak with the inmate about the adoption, including asking whether her boyfriend would sign a document relinquishing his parental rights. However the relationship seemed to sour over time.
“I don’t need birth moms that lie to me just to get financial support,” Hall allegedly wrote. “And I can’t give you anymore if he’s not willing to sign the paperwork. That means he wants the baby if he’s the father.”
Detectives determined Hall put $846 in her commissary. According to Texas law, it is legal for prospective adoptive parents to pay for medical and housing expenses for expectant mothers putting up their babies for adoption. But investigators say the cash given by Hall does not meet those standards because those expenses were incurred by Tarrant County since the mother was an inmate at the jail.
Hall allegedly became upset when in early May, the inmate changed her mind and decided to keep her baby after he was born. The attorney called the inmate a “drug addict,” the arrest report stated.
“You are a scammer and I will be telling the prosecutor in your case all about how this family supported you since November and you scammed them WITH THE HELP OF YOUR BOYFRIEND,” Hall allegedly wrote. “He’s got pictures all over FB of him holding the baby. You are such a liar!!!”
Deputies arrested Hall on July 23 and took her to the Hays County Jail where she has since bonded out.
According to her LinkedIn page, Hall founded Adoptions International, Inc. in 1995 and is the executive director.
“We help families from every state in the US or abroad, as well as citizens of other country ADOPT CHILDREN living in orphanages all over the world,” she writes on the LinkedIn page.
Local ABC affiliate WFAA reported Hall’s agency in 2019 lost the its accreditation from the Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity to adopt children overseas for “failing to maintain substantial compliance with accreditation standards.”
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