New Details Emerge in Baby-Selling Scam

Three women who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in what authorities said was a years-long illegal baby-selling scheme also defrauded a state health care program and illegally distributed fertility drugs to aid the scam, federal prosecutors now say.

Those are some of the latest allegations to surface in the case against prominent Poway fertility lawyer Theresa M. Erickson and two other women. The trio pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy in July and August and are awaiting sentencing in a case that captured national attention and led to scrutiny of the legal process governing surrogacy arrangements in California.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed documents last week fleshing out the scheme, including excerpts from emails among the trio and recorded telephone calls. The evidence, the court filing said, shows how greed drove the enterprise, reducing babies to commodities and taking risks with the health of the women carrying the children.

Erickson, Carla Chambers and Hilary Neiman are accused of soliciting women to travel to the Ukraine to be implanted with embryos. Defense lawyers for Erickson and Chambers did...