After being stationed at Fort Jackson, Sgt. Terry Achanes wife at the time, gave birth to the couple's baby girl and put her up for adoption in Utah without Achanes' knowledge.
/ Courtesy: Mark Wiser
COLUMBIA (WACH) -- After being stationed at Fort Jackson, Sgt. Terry Achanes wife at the time, gave birth to the couple's baby girl and put her up for adoption in Utah without Achanes' knowledge.
Achane then learned his daughter had been adopted and was living with another family.
WACH Fox interviewed Achane's attorney, Mark Wiser, who works in Utah.
"He immediately contacted the adoption agency and they wouldn't give him any information and they said that they would have an attorney contact him," said Wiser.
When that attorney finally contacted him, Achane was asked to give up his parental rights and he refused.
Achane has been trying to get his daughter back since she was 2 months old and now she's a toddler.
They have only had two visits together.
"This doesn't need to happen especially when you have someone who is in the military service and is having to serve his country. It is not a reason to give a child away for adoption and the mother is trying to claim that was abandonment and that's simply not true," said Wiser.
Wiser says Utah adoption laws make it very easy for situations like this to happen.
"We have fathers that are having their children placed up for adoption throughout the nation, they come to Utah, they're placed in homes in Utah or other couples that live out of state. Utah simply becomes the transit point," said Wiser.
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