The owner of a Glendora egg donation and surrogacy company pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal wire fraud charge for defrauding would-be parents, egg donors and surrogates out of nearly $270,000 over the course of at least three years.
Allison Layton, 38, faces a potential maximum of 20 years in federal prison when she is sentenced May 28 by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu.
Layton — who also used the name Allison Jarvie — owned and operated Miracles Egg Donation.
Between August 2008 and January 2012, would-be parents — who in the surrogacy and egg donation world are known as intended parents — paid thousands of dollars for egg donation and surrogacy services that Miracles promised to coordinate, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Layton took tens of thousands of dollars from intended parents, but instead of putting the funds into escrow accounts to be withdrawn only for certain costs related to surrogacy or egg donation, used the money for her own personal expenses or to cover unpaid costs related to other clients, prosecutors said.
As a result of Layton’s misappropriation of client funds, egg donors, surrogates, attorneys and others often weren’t paid for all the services they provided and intended parents often did not receive all the services for which they had paid, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. At least one investor in Miracles also lost money.
When the donors, surrogates and intended parents sought to recover their money and costs, Layton would lull them into believing they would be repaid through false assurances that payments had already been made or would be made soon, court papers show.
— City News Service