Peter McDonald
speaker
265 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Mar 2025
Peter McDonald’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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The way an out-of-state adoption works, at least in Michigan, is that the final paperwork goes to the desk of an official in the county where the baby was born. And it can take about three months for it to be approved.
The final paperwork for Mae Granath, the baby girl Tammy and Nick adopted from Sarah, was just days, maybe hours, from being stamped when Tara Lee was arrested and indicted on 18 counts of wire fraud. And just like that, May's adoption was flagged as possibly illegal. Talia Getting, their lawyer, had to call them and tell them the bad news.
It was almost like telling someone who thought they'd beaten a serious illness that, no, actually, someone had misread the test results.
Tammy fell apart.
In a few months, a judge in Michigan would decide if May's adoption was legal, or if Tammy and Nick would have to give her back. The central concern was if Tara Lee had coerced Sarah into giving up her baby. May was almost four months old. Every night as they put her to bed, Tammy and Nick worried that their days with their daughter were numbered.
Meanwhile, doctors had been monitoring May for a potential problem with her spine. When May turned six months old, the Grannis took her to the hospital for an MRI to determine if she needed surgery. Tammy and Nick watched as Mae, lying on a gurney, dressed in a tiny purple hospital gown, and hooked to an IV, was wheeled down the hallway and into the room.
From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, this is Baby Broker. I'm Peter McDonald. Episode 7, Gotcha Day.
When Tammy heard that Mae's birth mother wanted her back, she broke down in tears in the hospital hallway. Nurses ran to her, thinking she was upset about her infant daughter being sedated, but it was much worse than that. They got off the phone with the lawyer and called Sarah.
There was silence on the other end. The hearing to decide if May's adoption was legal was the very next day. But then Sarah said it was all just a misunderstanding. She wasn't really going to try to take May back. She'd lashed out because she was so angry. Angry that Tara Lee took advantage of her. that her adoption experience had been so messed up.
Minutes later, May was wheeled out. She was fine. She didn't need surgery. The next day, March 14th, Tammy and Nick had their day in court. the Michigan judge allowed them to appear on Zoom. Talia Getting and Tanya Corrado were there, and of course, the birth mother, Sarah.
Tammy and Nick gave me a transcript of the hearing, and I discovered some things I didn't know. The judge asked Sarah how many expenses Tara Lee had covered for her from the $8,000 the Graniths had provided. Under oath, Sarah said less than a quarter. After the birth, she'd asked Tara Lee for counseling sessions and Tara blocked her messages, left her high and dry.
And during Sarah's pregnancy, the Graniths had asked Tara Lee numerous times for a copy of her license to perform adoptions in Michigan, which of course she didn't have. She kept forgetting to give it to them. They hadn't mentioned that to me. Toward the end of the hearing, the judge asked Sarah if she'd been coerced. She said, no.
The only good thing that came out of Tara was Tammy and Nick, meeting them and my daughter having a loving, caring family. The judge said, I'm going to confirm this adoption. Tammy and Nick signed off, hugged their daughter, and wept.
Gotcha day. In the Granth household, it's a major holiday. A party with balloons and cake. Tara Lee was a conspicuous no-show for the Granth's adoption hearing. She'd avoided jail by paying a $10,000 bond, But to remain free, she had to follow certain rules. Chief among them, avoid using cell phones, an important restriction for someone charged with wire fraud.
But she broke the rule, and the person who caught her was investigative reporter Heather Catallo.
The video showed Tara Lee sitting in her SUV in a parking lot, texting on a cell phone. Two days later, she was back in court.
Sarah Woodward reminded the judge that Tara Lee had already violated the conditions of her bond twice. She'd tampered with witnesses, called victims, and tried to twist the arm of a former client to write her a letter of support in exchange for a partial refund for a failed adoption.
The magistrate judge, Mona Mazjobe, was exasperated.
Tara Lee was taken to jail. She changed out of her luxury apparel and into a plain set of prison duds. Behind the scenes, the FBI was still investigating her. In July, they arrested a co-conspirator, Angelica Wiggins. Wiggins was a young woman Lee had roped into impersonating birth mothers in phone calls with adoptive parents.
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