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Oh, Baby Baby

Continued from page 5

Published on June 07, 2007

Ryan's enthusiasm for the Press article did not extend to questions about her most recent husband, Jamie Quinonez, a.k.a. Jaime Quinonez, a.k.a. Joe Torivio Quinonez. In 2004, in Riverside County, Quinonez was charged with battery against a spouse and willful injury or harm to a child, among others.

  • Gandee Vasan
    There's a lot of money to be made in adoptions. Jennalee Ryan moved to Texas to continue doing that.
    There's a lot of money to be made in adoptions. Jennalee Ryan moved to Texas to continue doing that.
  • Mark Greenberg
    Jennalee Ryan says she has a need to rescue children.
    Jennalee Ryan says she has a need to rescue children.

Subject(s):

lax adoption regulations, baby-brokers, Abraham Center of Life
All Ryan would say about the charges is that they resulted from an incident in which Quinonez shot her with a BB gun. She would not describe how or which child was involved. Quinonez pleaded guilty to the willful injury charge; the spousal battery was dropped, according to Riverside County Court records. Quinonez was placed on probation until 2009 and ordered to attend a child battery program. (While Ryan says they are no longer married, Riverside County court records show the couple filed for divorce in 2005 but changed their minds; no divorce records are listed in Bexar County District Court's online database).

In general, Ryan says, "I don't really like talking about who I fucked and got pregnant by. I'm just not comfortable with that. I didn't think that was anybody's business, you know what I'm saying, who I used as a sperm donor."

And as for her kids, how they behave has nothing to do with the Abraham Center of Life or Abagails Silver Spoon Adoptions. But she was eager to clear up the misunderstanding behind a restraining order filed against her children (and her) by a Riverside County neighbor in 2003.

According to Jennifer, the disgruntled neighbor, Robert Hildreth, appeared at her door, red-faced and irate that her 11-year-old son rode his all-terrain vehicle on Hildreth's property, scaring his Friesian horses. (This had been a problem in the tony La Cresta subdivision for some time. The homeowners association had sued Ryan in 2000 for allowing her kids to ride motorcycles and ATVs on other people's lawns.) She let Hildreth address her boy, Sean, figuring he'd scold him. Instead, she says, Hildreth first punched Sean, chased him when he fled, pushed him to the ground and proceeded to kick him. A shocked Ryan called 911, but the cop was not interested in arresting Hildreth.

"Why? I'll tell you why," she says. "Because I was a single mother living in a house with eight children of all different colors, and I lived in a lily-white neighborhood and I was a strong woman and...I didn't march to the tune of everyone else's drum. It's very costly to think outside of the box. There's a price to pay."

So for some reason, after Hildreth beat the tar out of her kid, he successfully sought restraining orders against the Ryan household.

Hildreth declined to comment for this story, but his court petitions explain his side of the story. According to those records, friction arose between three of Ryan's sons and Hildreth's mentally handicapped son. So Hildreth asked the kids to no longer come to his house, and he notified Ryan. When the kids came over ten days later, Hildreth asked them to leave. Ryan subsequently appeared and threatened Hildreth's wife. This was followed a few days later by Ryan's three boys punching Hildreth's boy on the school bus. They continued to harass Hildreth's son.

Hildreth stated that he did confront Sean, but wrote that the boy "threw his chest into me. Surprised, I shoved him back, but Sean was left standing."

"They have repeatedly threatened my family and livestock/pets," Hildreth wrote.

But the highlight is Hildreth's explanation for why he included Ryan's seven-year-old boy (the one adopted kid who was not un-adopted) in his request for protective orders.

"[It] is simply intended to force the inattentive mother, Ms. Potter, to keep better watch of her young child and to keep him from coming on our property and getting hurt," he wrote. "[The boy] has shown up at our house (as well as others) unattended by anyone else (we are almost half a mile away) complaining of the treatment he was receiving by his brother, Sean: ‘Sean tied me to a tree with a chain around my neck and beat me with a stick.'"

Now, on to Utah.

Enacted in 1960, the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children was designed to monitor interstate adoptions and ensure child welfare by making sure the "sending" and "receiving" states knew exactly where each child was going. Under ICPC guidelines, mothers must notify fathers of children intended for interstate placement.

Apparently, Utah adoption agencies weren't paying strict attention, because in 2001, the Utah Department of Human Services warned agencies it would put the smackdown on any outfit that worked with mothers who did not notify fathers.

Three adoption agencies filed suit in Utah, claiming that ICPC guidelines do not apply to expectant mothers. In 2004, the Utah State Court of Appeals agreed.

One of the suing agencies, Adoption Center of Choice, had previously gained attention for handling the adoption of the child of a Chicago woman who may have been suffering from postpartum depression.

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