Woman Alleging Theft of Baby Gains Custody

EDINBURG, Tex. — A woman who claims her baby was stolen from her womb two years ago during a Cesarean section at a clinic in Mexico regained custody of the boy Friday.

“At the end, the truth comes out and everything is fine. Everything is great,” said Laura Lugo, emerging from the courtroom with tears of joy. “He’s ours.”

State District Judge Robert F. Barnes ordered the 2-year-old boy to be taken from foster care to Lugo’s Brownsville home this weekend.

Barnes issued the ruling on the basis of two rounds of DNA tests that ruled out Paulyna Botello as the biological mother. The genetic tests indicated a 99% chance that Lugo is the mother.

Lugo, 27, has seen the boy in only three brief visits since he was born.

She claims Botello and her sister, Rosa, befriended her, then lured her to a clinic in Matamoros during her final month of pregnancy for what she believed would be a routine prenatal exam.

Lugo says doctors drugged her, delivered the child, then gave him to Paulyna Botello, who raised him as her own.

The Botellos are charged in Mexico with child abduction; they face no U.S. charges.

Paulyna Botello, 33, a Mexican citizen who lives legally in Texas, is in custody in Brownsville awaiting extradition. Rosa Botello is at large.

The Botellos say Lugo agreed to give up the boy because of financial problems, then changed her mind and made up the story about an abduction.

“He’s got his room ready and everything. We’re all waiting for him,” Lugo said. “We are a loving family. We want this baby. He’s going to be loved very, very much.”

The boy--named Rafael Olvera Jr. by Paulyna Botello--has been in foster care since she was arrested June 30 by the FBI on a fugitive warrant from Mexico.

Lugo said she will rename the boy Jorge Daniel Alaniz, using her maiden name.

Arnoldo Cantu Jr., the court-appointed lawyer for the boy, urged the judge to delay transferring custody for a few weeks and have Lugo visit the boy.

“I want this to happen, judge, I just don’t want it to happen overnight,” Cantu said. “I think it would be traumatic for the child.”

But Lugo’s lawyer, Dorina Ramos, said her client has no car and could not afford to make frequent hourlong trips to the foster home in McAllen.