Chicago-based Ghanaian Sentenced For Adoption Scam

$97,835 In Restitution Added To Prison Term

CHICAGO -- A 56-year-old Bolingbrook woman was sentenced Tuesday to serve 30 months in prison for collecting more than $95,000 in subsidy checks from two state departments after making false claims about children she had cared for and adopted.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer sentenced Esi Antobam (sketched, left), of 355 Pheasant Creek Drive in Bolingbrook, to the high end of the penalty range of 24 to 30 months in prison.

In determining the penalty range, Pallmeyer found Antobam was not eligible for credit for accepting responsibility for her actions because she had obstructed justice by telling an 18-year-old man she brought from Ghana not to talk to authorities about anything regarding the household.

Antobam also was ordered to serve 3 years on supervised release and to pay $97,835 restitution to the two state departments.

Prior to the sentence being imposed, Antobam said through an interpreter, "I'd like you to know I'm very regretful. As I hope God has forgiven me, I hope to receive your forgiveness."
Antobam pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of mail fraud for fraudulently collecting monthly child-care benefits from the Illinois Department of Human Services and adoption subsidy payments from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services between 1999 and 2002.
Antobam said in a plea agreement with prosecutors she falsely stated in DHS applications for child-care benefits that she worked outside the home from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and needed funds to pay a child care provider to care for her 11 children.
She falsely claimed her child-care provider was her niece who lived at the defendant's Bolingbrook address. The niece actually lived in New York and was not Antobam's child-care provider, according to the plea.
Antobam forged her niece's signature on checks mailed from the department to her home and deposited the money into her own bank accounts.
In January 1999, Antobam adopted three children ages 10, 11 and 12, and received adoption subsides in the amount of $3,055 per month from DCFS. But in 2001, she sent the children to live in Ghana.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Valarie Hays told the judge, "She used that money to live on, while those children were in Ghana."

DCFS continued sending subsidy payments to Antobam because the agency was not notified about the residency change.

In addition, Antobam stipulated to using U.S. passports to bring illegal aliens into the country and providing them false identification documents.

Hays said Antobam brought four children -- the 18-year-old man, another male teen, a 16-year-old female teen, and a young female child -- from Ghana to live with her.

The older children told authorities Antobam provided them with false identification documents and told them to get jobs, Hays told the judge. She also had the children clean her house.

Defense lawyer Gary Ravitz said the situation was similar to other households in America where children old enough to obtain employment are told to do so by their parents while still completing chores at home.

Ravitz also pointed out there was no evidence showing Antobam used the money earned by the children to support herself.

He asked the judge to impose the low end of the penalty range so Antobam could get out of prison sooner and take her children out of DCFS custody.

Hays said authorities located the three adopted boys in Ghana and brought them back to Illinois. The boys, who were in state custody, tested positive for exposure to malaria and one of the boys had lesions on his body, she added.

But Ravitz said, "Ms. Antobam is not the demon she's made out to be."

He said the boys were taken care of in Ghana, and were enrolled in the appropriate schools. Two of the boys lived with a minister, Ravitz added.

No one could say with whom the third boy lived in Ghana.

Ravitz also noted a DCFS report stating the boys were happy in Ghana.

In addition, Hays said the 18-year-old man was deported and the two girls were returned to their families in Ghana. The other boy remained in state custody.

Antobam has been in federal custody since her arrest in October 2002.