Tag Archives: Russian adoptions

Things just got more complicated in WACAP v  Hansen, (see entry directly below.)  Bedford  (TN) County Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell called a postponement in the hearing scheduled for yesterday, after Torry Hansen’s lawyer, Sandra Smith, filed a last minute motion to exclude the press and public from the hearing.  Smith argued that proceedings and filings in juvenile court are confidential. While this is true, the current case is filed in circuit court and not under seal. I can’t find the motion online, but Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter John Carney quoted Smith’s argument: The mere fact that the matter may be newsworthy should not override the parties’, including those of the minor child, right to confidentiality. Of course this is laughable.  Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy are concerned about Artyom Saveliev’s “confidentiality” after their antics plastered his story and picture around the world, turning the boy into an international incident that nearly shutdown cross-country adoption between Russia and the US? Concerned about somebody’s confidentiality for sure, but not his. WACAP;s Nashville attorney Larry Crain said it best: It is indeed ironic that the same parent who recklessly abandoned her child  by placing him on a one-way flight to Moscow would Continue Reading →

I need to do some backtracking on the Artyom Savelyev/Justin Hansen case  The 8-year old Russian abandoned by his adopter mother,  is still in care somewhere in Moscow. Here’s what happening stateside. The lawsuit filed by World Association of Children and Parents, the adoption agency that placed Artyom with his forever mother Torry Hansen, has been scheduled  to be heard  in Bedford County (TN) Circuit Court court on January 3, 2012, a year and a half after it was filed.   Two motions  will be heard later today, though,, one to dismiss; the other to amend the petition. The case is under seal and there are no other details. Sheriff Boyce during press conference The WAPAC suit was filed in May 2010,  a month after Artyom was COD’d back to the Russian Ministry  of Education,  via American Airlines, when Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy decided the boy wasn’t a good fit.  WACAP filed asking to be appointed temporary guardian out of frustration because no one  in Tennessee, the boy’s “home state,” was investigating claims that the Hansens had abandoned and endangered him there.  Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce argued that there was no evidence to indicate that the boy Continue Reading →

This is cross-posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blogThe Daily Bastardette and Nikto Ne Zabyt is probably the only place you will find this!Our quick-witted commenter “blueheron” caught the following comment on the Redding Record/Redding.com article, Russian boy case linked to Redding and added it to my Weird World of Torry Hansen comments (on the Daily Bastardette site.) I’m posting it here because I think the comment deserves wider distribution and shouldn’t just set as a comment.–especially since it has been disappeared from it’s original site newspaper site. We can’t judge the veracity of the writer, but it’s an intriguing clue to the Hansen puzzle. From what we know of similar abuse cases involving the Forever Families of Russian adoptees, social isolation plays is a key marker. blueheron wrote:Here is a comment from the article about the Hansens in Redding and Hayfork. I can’t vouch for the truth, but it is interesting. Any errors are in the original. Here’s the link to the article/comments: http://www.redding.com/news/2010/apr/16/russian-boy-case-linked-to-redding/?partner=RSS southforkmom writes:The other part of this story has no one questioning the mother’s role in this picture. The real story here is that Torry Continue Reading →

This is cross-posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blog The Russian Foreign Ministry has put a freeze on all adoptions to the US until an agreement can be made between the two countries to better protect the rights–and we presume bodies and minds–of children placed in US homes. New York Times:“Future adoptions of Russian children by citizens of the United States, which are now suspended, are possible only if such an agreement is reached,” a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrei Nesterenko, (right) said at a briefing on Thursday.Officials at the United States Embassy in Moscow said they had not received official notification of a suspension and were seeking more information from their Russian counterparts. Fox News adds:Today State Department sources were caught unawares by the announcement of a freeze. A U.S. diplomatic source told me “we don’t know anything about it, the Russians have told us nothing officially”. The National Council for Adoption sent out a press release (not yet online) this morning which reads in part: The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) has spoken with Russian officials in the Ministry of Education (the Russian department with Continue Reading →

This is cross posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blog OK. We have officially entered the Weird World of Torry Hansen. The Tennessean reports that back in 2006, Torry Hansen and a former neighbor Robert Abbott engaged in what it calls a “bizarre feud.” How bizarre? The paper doesn’t give us the run-up, but reports that at 4:19 AM October 7, 2006, Hansen called the cops on Abbott complaining he was on her property. He was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing. The charges were dropped later. At the time, Hansen was sharing a home in Chapel Hill with her parents, sister, and a young boy, who I assume is Logan. Sheriff Randall Boyce, currently investigating Artem’s case, says he has a vague recollection of the feud: I remember they were putting cameras on each other. Cameras on each other? Fredia Smith, who purchased the 4,300-square-foot Chapel Hill home and 30 acres from the Hansens in 2007 remembers visible evidence of the feud well. She keeps a picture of a trailer Hansen painted neon orange, green and purple and placed near the road, apparently to irritate her neighbors. It Continue Reading →

This is cross posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blog Like Laura Silsby, Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy just get weirder and weirder. Unless otherwise cited, the following material comes from this ABC News article and video. Another Adoptee for Torry HansenABC News reported yesterday, using an unnamed source inside the Bedford County sheriff’s office, that while Torry Hansen was getting ready to ship one adopted son back to Russia she was trying to adopt another child from the Republic of Georgia. And she wasn’t getting any help from her agency, the World Association for Children and Parents, either: She switched adoption agencies after the agency that arranged the adoption of her first child, World Association for Children and Parents, urged her to wait before adopting again, the source said. The association advised Hansen it would be best to settle in with the boy before adding to her family, the source said. WACAP now has a FAQ on its page regarding Artem’s case (much of which is “confidential” and cannot be released) and outlining international adoption procedures and practices it follows. No more details on the alleged second Continue Reading →

This is cross posted from my Nikto Ne Zabyt (Memoriam for Russian Adoptees Murdered and Abused by their Forever Families) blog. I have found it difficult to believe that any lawyer, even online, would have advised the Hansens to stick Artem on a plane and hire a tour guide to escort him to the Ministry of Science and Education building on Moscow’s main street. Hansen’s lawyer has now been identified as St. Petersburg attorney Karina Krasnova. Despite Nancy Hansen’s plea that she made a quick decision to send Artum back, Krasnova says Hanson contacted her a month ago about how to return the boy. Sending him to Tverskaya was definitely NOT the advice she gave. Krasnova has a free Ask Russian Lawyer a Question feature on her (linked above) webpage. Guess what? That’s where Nancy Hansen got her advice–actually good advice–which she promptly ignored. If the Hansens think they can plead ignorance of the law or get Krasnova to back them up, they’re in for a real rude awakening. Here is how the Q & A went: Q: My daughter adopted boy from Russia (she is a single mother). My daughter was lied to about the child’s behavior by the Continue Reading →