A suspended attorney has been reinstated on stipulation by the Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge.
The suspension decision is linked here.
Ritland engaged in misconduct in the course of seeking to adopt her second cousin’s baby. She circumvented proper channels for the adoption by falsely listing her own husband as the birth father on the baby’s birth certificate, and she later filed a petition for stepparent adoption in which she referred to her husband as the birth father. She also counseled her husband to falsely aver that he was the birth father in a related filing. Ritland stipulated that these actions violated Colo. RPC 1.2(d) (counseling a client to engage in criminal or fraudulent conduct); 3.3(a)(1) (knowingly making false statements of material fact to a tribunal); 3.3(d) (informing the tribunal of material facts in an ex parte proceeding); 3.4(b) (falsifying evidence or counseling or assisting a witness to testify falsely); 8.4(c) (conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation); and 8.4(d) (conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice).
After the matter proceeded to a sanctions hearing, the Hearing Board concluded that the appropriate sanction was a three‐year suspension.
The story of the suspension is a complicated one unrelated to the attorney’s practice
In 2009, Cortney Johnson and Tristan Antone were involved in a romantic relationship, and Johnson became pregnant. The romantic relationship ended. Although the former couple stopped communicating with one another, Mr. Antone’s mother, Lorrie Antone, kept in touch with Johnson. The Antones and Johnson live in Canada.
In early 2010, Johnson sought out Respondent, her distant relative. Unbeknownst to Mr. Antone and his mother, Johnson wanted to give her as‐yet unborn baby up for adoption. Johnson asked Respondent and her husband, Todd Ritland, to consider adopting the baby. The Ritlands began planning how they could adopt Johnson’s baby. It was decided that Johnson would travel to Colorado, where Respondent lived, to give birth.
Johnson told the Ritlands that the baby’s birth father had abandoned her and wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. She said that the birth father told her to abort the baby and threatened to kill her if she did not do so. Based on these reports, the Ritlands did not know the birth father’s identity but assumed he did not wish to assert parental rights.
The attorney had wanted a baby and decided to falsely name her husband as the birth father to simplify the process. She had noprofessional experience with adoptions.
At the time Respondent received Johnson’s email, she and her husband had been trying to conceive for more than a year without success. Respondent credibly testified that she was “obsessed” with having a baby, describing the desire for a child as a “primal need.” It was a “very emotional and draining time,” she said. Neither she nor her husband had adequate insurance or savings to seek infertility treatments. The Ritlands decided they wanted to adopt Johnson’s baby.
The real father derailed the plan
Before the adoption was finalized, Respondent had been in sporadic contact with Johnson, and Johnson had said nothing more about the birth father. But in July 2011, Johnson called Respondent to say that Mr. Antone had filed a child custody suit in Canada. Respondent was “shocked and dumbfounded.” She later gathered that Johnson had been emailing with Ms. Antone since A.R.’s birth, representing that A.R. in fact lived with her. According to Respondent, Johnson told her that someone had hacked into her email account to write to Ms. Antone. Respondent had no idea how to respond, but she hired an attorney for Johnson…
The parties engaged in negotiations, and Respondent believed they had reached an agreement in principle to settle in December 2012. According to Respondent, Mr. Antone sent her a letter agreeing that A.R. could remain in the Ritlands’ custody, provided Mr. Antone could have visitation rights. Respondent emailed Mr. Antone in mid‐January
2013, thanking him for his decision and saying she was hoping to arrange travel to Ontario with A.R. in the second week of February. She asked about logistics regarding that trip and Mr. Antone’s expectations for in‐person visits and video or phone communications with A.R. Respondent did not hear back from Mr. Antone, and the visit did not take place.
In April 2013, Respondent received a call from her attorney, who told her that the Antones had just obtained the adoption file from Arapahoe County and that, based on their discovery of Respondent’s false representations, they were discontinuing settlement discussions. As Respondent tells it, she was “flabbergasted,” believing that the Antones had seen the file soon after she gave it to her attorney the previous fall. To try to salvage the settlement discussions, Respondent emailed Mr. Antone on April 12, 2013, reiterating that she hadn’t known of him until he filed the custody suit, apologizing for her role in the events, and imploring him not to take A.R. from the only family he had ever known. When she received no response, Respondent followed up two days later. She said that if Mr. Antone were willing to reach an agreement, the Ritlands would be willing to move to Canada within a few months. She again begged him to consider reaching an agreement that would not take A.R. from his family.
She received no answer, but on April 30, 2013, Mr. Antone moved to vacate the adoption decree in Arapahoe County, alleging Mr. Ritland had been fraudulently identified
as A.R.’s birth father. Immediately, Respondent confessed the motion and the court vacated the adoption decree.
The Ritlands then filed paternity and maternity actions in Adams County. This time, mediation was successful: the parties agreed that Respondent would be adjudged A.R.’s legal mother, Mr. Antone would be his legal father and enjoy visitation rights, and Mr. Antone would dismiss the Canadian case. As of the sanctions hearing, Respondent said the Adams County cases were “almost over,” with just some outstanding financial issues to be resolved.
(Mike Frisch)