State Suing Ohio Adoption Agency

STRONGSVILLE, OH — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced on Friday that he is suing the Strongsville-based European Adoption Consultants (EAC) and its owner, Margaret Cole. DeWine says the group took money from clients without ever providing adoption services.

In late December 2016, the EAC was debarred by the U.S. State Department. The agency had approximately 300 clients at that time. The EAC posted a statement on its website, saying it disagreed with all of the complaints that had been leveled against it.

The FBI raided the EAC in mid-February 2017. At the time, the FBI would not comment on why it was investigating the agency.

The agency reportedly had hundreds of clients with pending adoption service agreements. As a result of the debarring, the agency was forced to transfer those cases to accredited adoption agencies.

From January 2017 on, more than 70 consumers filed complaints against the EAC with the Ohio Attorney General's Office. Many said they had large sums of money to the agency but had received no services in return. The company transferred the clients' files but did not refund their money.

DeWine filed suit against EAC on Thursday in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

The lawsuit further alleges that Cole and her agency lied about which countries the EAC had adoption programs with. The EAC also allegedly lied about how long the adoption process would take, whether or not clients could adopt children from a specific country, and whether distributed fees collected from consumers.

Cole is separately accused of misleading the EAC's board on the status of the agency's assets.

“Our goal is to help the families who have been affected by this,” DeWine said in a statement. “Many people invested significant time and money to adopt through this agency, and now they are left without their files or the money they paid. As a result, they face additional time, effort, and costs to complete their adoptions.”

DeWine is seeking reimbursement for EAC clients and an end to further violations. To that end, DeWine is looking to prohibit Cole from operating or working for a charitable organization in Ohio and the dissolution of the EAC.

Read the full lawsuit by clicking here.

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