SC couple try to pass off baby as their own — then abandon her overseas, feds say
An American woman living overseas with her husband in the Marine Corps went to the Philippines on vacation and tried to come back with a baby that wasn’t theirs — then tried to pass the child off as their biological daughter and a U.S. citizen, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Gerald Vincent Locker Jr. and his wife Stephanie Jean Locker from Huger, South Carolina — just north of Charleston — pleaded guilty Thursday to federal conspiracy charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina said in a news release.
Stephanie Locker also pleaded guilty to making false statements in a passport application.
“She falsely attested, in support of her application for a passport for the child, that while in the Philippines on vacation she learned she was pregnant five days before the baby was born,” prosecutors said in the news release.
The Lockers were living in Japan in 2014 because Gerald Locker was stationed there with the U.S. Marine Corps, according to a criminal indictment filed last year. During that time, prosecutors said the couple started asking people about how to adopt a child from the Philippines without going through the legal adoption process.
Stephanie Locker then went to the Philippines on vacation in September 2014, according to the indictment. Her husband reportedly told her to delete all her text messages while there.
In one of their exchanges, prosecutors said she asked Gerald Locker for a photograph “in which he appeared to have darker skin, consistent with (the baby’s) skin tone.” In another, Gerald Locker mentioned filing for a birth certificate and getting the baby a U.S. passport, the indictment states.
Prosecutors said he later signed documents claiming to be the infant girl’s biological father, and Stephanie Locker obtained a birth certificate from the Filipino government listing them both as the baby’s biological parents.
The following month in October 2014, Gerald Locker reportedly applied to add the baby as his dependent for extra military benefits while Stephanie Locker was still in the Philippines applying for the child’s U.S. passport.
But she lied to officials at the U.S. Consulate in the Philippines during that process, according to the indictment.
Stephanie Locker told them she had arrived in the Philippines on Sept. 4, 2014, with considerable back pain and went to a clinic, prosecutors said. That’s when she reportedly found out she was pregnant and was “surprised when she had the baby five days later,” the indictment states.
She also told officials the baby was born weighing just 5 pounds “with a very low heartbeat due to (Stephanie’s) prescribed medicine,” prosecutors said in the indictment.
The Lockers were eventually pressed to submit DNA testing to prove the girl was theirs, at which point they “abandoned the baby, leaving the child in the care of a local family in the Philippines,” according to Thursday’s news release. The girl was eventually put with a foster family in the Philippines.
Gerald and Stephanie Locker were arrested in July 2019, according to court filings.
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 6:07 PM with the headline "SC couple try to pass off baby as their own — then abandon her overseas, feds say."
