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Tara Lee must re-record victim impact letters in adoption fraud scheme

Posted at 2:38 PM, Mar 31, 2021
and last updated 2021-03-31 21:00:13-04

(WXYZ) — It was a nationwide adoption fraud scheme first exposed by the 7 Investigators.

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Now, a year after she was sentenced to a decade behind bars, a Macomb County mother is trying to get her conviction set aside.

Tara Lee is claiming she had ineffective lawyers for her guilty plea. During a virtual federal court hearing Wednesday with U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman, Lee, through her newly-appointed defense attorney, agreed to waive her trial attorney-client privilege so her motion can go forward.

Federal prosecutors and the defense will have several months to review the information in the case.

Meanwhile, the 7 Investigators recently revealed how Lee had previously failed to complete part of her sentence that required her to read every victim impact statement into a recording device from her prison in Alabama.

The 7 Investigators have now learned that Lee overlooked some of those victim impact letters and will now have to re-do those recordings.

In a statement released to 7 Action News, a court spokesman said, “On March 18, the Probation Department met virtually with Lee and BOP officials. We instructed Ms. Lee that she had not satisfied Court’s order. A review of the initial tape recordings we received indicated that Ms. Lee overlooked some letters and portions of some letters. She understood and was directed to complete the readings again. We are expecting to receive an update in early April.”