Woman Who Sent Back Boy To Pay $150,000

[katharnak]

Moscow, May 18: A court in the US has told an American woman, who sent her adopted son back to Russia, to pay $150,000 in damages, child support, and legal fees, a media report said.

Torry Hansen was living in Tennessee in April 2010, when she put Artyom Savelyev, then seven, on a flight to his native Russia unaccompanied, with a note saying she did not want him because he was "psychotic". She had adopted the boy from a Russian orphanage in 2009, reported RIA Novosti.

Hansen, who now resides in California, was sued in March for unpaid child support by her adoption agency, World Association for Children and Parents (WACAP).

A judge in Tennessee ordered "Hansen to pay her adopted son $58,000, the adoption agency $29,000 and attorney fees of nearly $63,000 as well as $1,000 a month in child support", NewsChannel5 television said.

Russian lawmakers repeatedly expressed discontent with what they called "soft punishments" for adoptive parents in the US abusing their adopted Russian children. In February, a Pennsylvania court sentenced Theresa McNulty, who brutally abused her adopted Russian daughter, six-year-old Dasha, to just 23 months in jail the possibility of parole in eight-months' time.

In another case, a court in Pennsylvania sentenced Michael and Nanette Craver to 16 months in jail last November after they were found guilty of the involuntarily manslaughter of their adopted Russian son Ivan who was found dead with over 80 injuries on his body.

Russia is one of the largest sources of foreign adoptions for US families. At present, about 400 Russian children are living with adoptive families in the US.