In re Swihart

Attorney Thomas Swihart (defendant), retained to arrange an adoption for a pregnant mother who explicitly wanted no local placement and no knowledge of the adoptive parents, instead decided with his wife to adopt the child himself; he arranged for his own personal-friend notary to witness new consent forms, misleadingly implied things about the adoption, and later asked the birth parents to sign an affidavit promising not to appear at the adoption hearing. The birth parents refused, hired new counsel, and a court ultimately returned the child to the mother and invalidated the consent forms.