Quets Gives Up

September 15, 2007 permalink

Allison Quets, the mother who took her children to Canada to escape forcible adoption, has pleaded guilty to kidnapping. She was held in jail for an indefinite term that she could end only by a guilty plea.

expand

collapse

Woman pleads guilty to international parental kidnapping

By TITAN BARKSDALE and SARAH OVASKA

Raleigh News & Observer

Friday, September 14, 2007

Allison Quets, who attracted headlines with her fight to regain custody of her twins, pleaded guilty Friday to two charges of international parental kidnapping.

Quets, of Orlando, Fla., appeared calm as she entered the guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Raleigh. She was scheduled to be released pending sentencing Dec. 17.

Quets had been in jail since her arrest in December in Ottawa, where she had fled with the twins, who had been adopted by an Apex, N.C., couple.

The twins, now 2 years old, had been adopted by Kevin and Denise Needham and were in their custody at the time Quets left the country with them. Quets had visitation rights and was fighting in the Florida courts to get them back.

The courts have upheld the adoption by the Needhams.

Quets, a former Lockheed Martin engineer, gave birth to the twins at age 47 after getting pregnant through in-vitro fertilization. Her friends said she was extremely ill during her pregnancy and gave up the children, Tyler and Holly, under duress when they were 5 weeks old.

Her fight for the twins stirred sympathy in some quarters, and supporters set up an Internet site to solicit donations and publicize her case.

When she was in Canada, Quets stayed at a bed-and-breakfast for five days, and the inn's owners raised money to help defray her legal costs.

(Titan Barksdale can be reached at titan.barksdale(at)newsobserver.com. Sarah Ovaska can be reached at sarah.ovaska(at)newsobserver.com.)

Source: Scripps News