A Utah adoption agency is closing Friday, weeks after local landlords cracked down on the firm for failing to pay rent on apartments intended to be used by pregnant mothers.
Sandi Benson, director of Brighter Adoptions, confirmed in a text to the Salt Lake Tribune that the 10-year-old organization was shutting down. She stated that the agency is “working with existing clients and birth mothers in active cases to facilitate appropriate transitions, finalizations, and continuity of care.” She declined to respond to questions about how many mothers or adoptive parents were affected by the closure, or whether anyone was living in the units that are facing eviction.
“Due to the privacy rights of the families and birth mothers involved, and the sensitive nature of adoption matters,” she wrote, “I am unable to provide additional details at this time.”
The closure comes as the state Legislature appears poised to pass a bill that would significantly alter the landscape for agencies like Brighter Adoptions. It would force them to become nonprofit organizations, and it would impose tighter restrictions on how they could advertise to, compensate and treat pregnant women.
It is unclear how many mothers, or adoptive parents, are affected by the closure. In 2021, Benson said in a deposition that her agency handled about 50 adoptions a year. The founders of Utah Adoption Rights, an organization that advocates for adoption reform, estimate that at least 20 current cases are affected.
Meanwhile, a Florida consultancy for adoptive parents that has worked with Brighter Adoptions sent an email to its clients earlier this week reporting that it was aware of at least two adoptions that had “experienced disruptions at the same time the agency announced it was closing.”
“We know there are multiple families across the country who have also experienced disruptions and potential financial loss,” Evermore Adoption Consultants stated.
The group encouraged families with “funds currently with Brighter Adoptions” to file a complaint with the Utah Attorney General’s Office. The consultancy also told its clients that they could file a fraud complaint with the FBI, adding that at least four families had already done so.
The Layton agency’s closure comes about a month after eviction notices were served at three nearby apartments leased by the organization. Eviction papers were also served at a unit leased by Benson. Some Utah adoption agencies lease such units for pregnant women who are brought to the state to complete adoptions. It is unclear whether the units were occupied when these notices were served.
Neither the apartment complexes nor their lawyers responded to requests from The Tribune for comment.
Utah has some of the country’s least-restrictive adoption laws, which allow agencies to offer generous aid to birth mothers, including thousands of dollars in cash for unspecified post-partum expenses. The laws also allow speedy, irreversible adoptions for prospective adoptive parents.
Critics argue that the state’s framework has fueled an “adoption tourism” industry that exploits pregnant women who come to Utah and drives up costs for adoptive parents. The system can also cut out birth fathers from the process.
This year, the Legislature seems poised to act. A sweeping reform bill sponsored by Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden, has passed both chambers of the Legislature with bipartisan support and is awaiting a final House vote to approve changes made in the Senate.
The legislation would require adoption agencies to operate as nonprofits by Jan. 1, 2027, meaning they would need to register their status with the Internal Revenue Service and provide regular disclosures of revenue, salaries and expenses.
The bill would also add requirements that an agency’s licensing status be included in advertisements in which financial incentives could not be mentioned, and would also impose limits on how much could be paid toward birth parents’ living expenses. Currently, there is no limit.
‘I know this news will be upsetting’
In an email addressed to the agency’s “waiting families,” Benson wrote that the decision to close “was not made lightly.”
“Despite my best efforts, circumstances have made it impossible for me to continue operating. I know this news will be upsetting, and I am truly sorry for the stress and financial impact this may cause you,” the email stated. “I share in your disappointment, and this is not the outcome I ever wanted for you or for my business.”
She added: “The legal landscape of adoption has changed significantly in the last year making advertising more difficult.” That, plus “opposition in bringing moms to Utah” and law changes in other other states “have made remaining operational impossible.”
Benson did not respond to questions about the email.
As of Thursday, Brighter Adoptions’ website was still online, including information for birth mothers to enlist its services, with no notice of the closure. The agency’s license does not expire until November, according to a Department of Health and Human Services database.
Prior to operating Brighter Adoptions, Benson owned and operated TLC Adoption from 1999 to 2006, and she worked with Heart and Soul Adoptions from 2011 through 2017, she stated in a 2021 deposition stemming from a custody case for a child placed through Brighter Adoptions.
Brighter Adoptions was incorporated in 2016, Benson testified.
Inspections since August 2023, DHHS records show, found no substantiated complaint allegations or citations. However, state regulators did place Brighter Adoptions’ license on a conditional status in 2019 because of its associations with Denise Garza. Garza’s then-agency, Heart and Soul, had lost its license a year earlier after regulators discovered “repeated and chronic violations” of state law — including some that a judge called “potentially criminal.”
After that agency lost its license, Garza continued working in the industry, referring clients to Brighter Adoptions or transporting them for the agency, despite being unlicensed, state regulators wrote in a notice of agency action.
Evermore, the Florida adoption consultancy, stated in its email that Brighter Adoptions’ clients were being referred to Garza’s agency through Utah attorney Larry Jenkins. The agency noted they did not endorse Love and Light Adoption.
Jenkins said in an email to the Tribune that “the law allows an agency to transfer custody of a child in its custody to another licensed agency. This can happen when an agency ceases business if an adoption is not yet final.”
He added: “I would not be involved with that.”
For her part, Garza said in a text message to the Tribune, “I am not taking any ongoing cases that were previously being handled by Larry Jenkins on behalf of another agency.”
She added that she provides “ethical, compassionate and legally compliant adoption services to the families I serve.”
Evermore did not respond to requests for comment.
The state Office of Licensing confirmed that Brighter Adoptions had “arranged for case file maintenance and record continuity through another agency.”
Benson told The Tribune that she has not been contacted by the state attorney general, the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. The attorney general’s office did not comment on whether an investigation might be underway.
That office has been supportive of the adoption-reform bill currently before the Legislature. Earlier this month, Deputy Attorney General Stewart Young told lawmakers that he backed the bill because the office had investigated various agencies for coercion, fraud and human trafficking.
He said that the bill, by making agencies become non-profits, was “vital and necessary to eliminate those bad actors.”
Ashley Mitchell, a co-founder of Utah Adoption Rights, said she and others are mobilizing this weekend to leave flyers at the complexes in Layton, where Brighter Adoptions leased apartments for birth mothers. She has done this sort of campaign before, but this time, she said, the information they leave will be tailored for mothers who were placing their baby through an agency that has closed, as well as providing advice about tenant rights.
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