Adoption Case Twists

A case of adoptive parents who reluctantly agreed to return their 5-month-old boy took a twist Wednesday when a judge told them they should keep the baby.

The biological mother, Sheila Sheil, had consented to the adoption with the condition that the birth father also approved. But she named the wrong man as Baby Michael’s father. Genetic tests revealed Franklin Velasquez was the father, and he objected to the adoption.

Sheil withdrew her consent, and adoptive parents Kim and Dennis Sowers agreed to surrender their son rather than have his life entangled in the courts.

Then reports of Sheil’s criminal history surfaced. In 1993, she served six months in prison on four felony convictions for stealing from a 90-year-old patient while on probation for other fraud and theft convictions.