Woman given $22K by Kansas couple in adoption fraud scheme escaped custody, feds say
A Texas woman who faked a pregnancy in an adoption fraud case where a Kansas couple paid her more than $22,000 escaped custody last month, officials said.
Chrystal Marie Rippey, 38, formerly of Marshall, Texas, was charged with escaping federal custody after she walked away from a halfway house, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a news release.
Rippey turned up missing from the Grossman Residential Reentry Center in Leavenworth, Kan., on July 17, the release said, and was later arrested in Monroe, La.
Rippey was arrested July 26 on suspicion of simple escape and booked into the Ouachita Correctional Center, jail records show. She was released to federal authorities on July 31.
In the adoption fraud case, prosecutors alleged that Rippey pretended to be pregnant and contacted adoption agencies and individuals looking to adopt. She told them she was willing to give up her unborn children for adoption, but asked the agencies and individuals for money for rent, utilities, food and living expenses.
A Shawnee, Kan., couple wired $22,225 for Rippey’s living expenses to an escrow account in California in 2011 as part of their plan to adopt Rippey’s children, prosecutors said. She told them false stories about a fire burning a home and troubles with Child Protective Services to get the couple to give her more money. Then she broke off contact with them.
Rippey received more support from a couple she contacted while working with American Adoptions, an agency in Overland Park, Kan., prosecutors said. But the couple was “shocked when they went to California to meet her and saw that she didn’t look pregnant.”
In another case, Rippey moved into the home of a Delaware couple for a month, prosecutors said. The couple took her on a two-week beach vacation, paid her living expense and bought her new clothes, a cellphone and food.
She gave the Delaware couple a photo she got from the internet of a sonogram she claimed showed her pregnancy with twins, prosecutors said. She then broke off contact with the couple.
Another couple paid fees to a Texas adoption agency and ran up travel expenses in hopes of adopting twins from Rippey, prosecutors said. When Rippey tried to get money from the couple by claiming she had not eaten in days and had a son in the hospital, the agency told the couple to refuse her request until she completed adoption paperwork.
Rippey pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2014 and was sentenced to 60 months in prison in the adoption scam case, prosecutors said at the time.
If convicted of the escape from custody charge, she faces up to five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
This story was originally published August 8, 2018 at 5:31 PM.