A Florida foster mother has been arrested on charges of organizing an adoption scheme and allegedly used her own son as a pawn in the fraud.
Tina Scee, 45, allegedly posed as a worker for the Florida Department of Children and Families while a foster parent and created a guise that the disabled boy she later adopted in 2017 when he was 2 years old was available for adoption, according to a press release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
A couple from Ohio then visited Scee, a resident of Interlachen, a town about 50 miles southwest of St. Augustine, to meet the boy, authorities said. Scee then allegedly let the boy return to Ohio with the couple but told them that they would have to return to Florida several times before the adoption could be completed.
Scee had the couple bring the child back to Florida multiple times in September 2017 and October 2017 to make it appear that she was was taking care of the child full time during site visits from DCF, authorities said. Meanwhile, she was receiving SNAP benefits and daycare assistance for the child while he was in Ohio, which totaled nearly $4,000.