Convicted sex offender obtains baby by surrogacy with no oversight… and he’s not the first

A firestorm of controversy has erupted over the discovery that a convicted sex offender and his partner were able to fundraise and then gain access to a baby born via a surrogate.

The case raises more questions about the ethics of surrogacy and the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART), as this couple is not the first to purchase a child from the fertility industry despite having a questionable background.

Key Takeaways:

• Logan Riley and Brandon Keith Mitchell launched a GoFundMe fundraiser (now deleted) to hire a surrogate so they could obtain a child. It is unknown whether either Riley or Mitchell is biologically related to the baby.

• Some time after they took the baby into their home, they shared a video celebrating their baby’s first year of life.

• The video quickly went viral, and internet sleuths discovered that Mitchell is a registered sex offender in the state of Pennsylvania.

• Other sex offenders or people with questionable backgrounds have also been able to obtain children through surrogacy without oversight or regulation to protect the children.

The Details:

In 2023, the couple launched a GoFundMe page to raise money so they could hire a surrogate to carry a child for them. They used a donor egg and a separate surrogate mother, meaning the surrogate was not biologically related to the child she was carrying. They announced in November they had found a surrogate and had created four embryos through IVF. At some point, they were able to implant at least one of the embryos, and the surrogate later gave birth to a little boy.

The couple shared a video of their first year with their son on social media — but once it went viral, more details surfaced.

It was discovered that Mitchell is a registered sex offender who propositioned an underage student while he was a teacher. The Megan’s Law site for the state of Pennsylvania confirmed Mitchell’s status as a Tier 1 sex offender, showing he had been convicted for child sexual abuse and possession of child sexual abuse materials.

Prosecutors found over 12,000 messages between Mitchell and his victim, who was a 16-year-old boy at the time of the events, which began in 2013. Mitchell was the child’s 27-year-old chemistry teacher at the time:

The messages – sent on a non-school-issued cellphone and personal laptop – began in May 2013 when the boy was just 16 years old. The conversations turned sexual in the summer of 2013 and, according to the criminal complaint, included messages from Mitchell that read, “you can give me a bj after you graduate” and “Do you have naked pictures [of] yourself on your phone?”

… Besides sexual messages, Mitchell and the boy also exchanged nude photographs, including more than a dozen of Mitchell’s penis, according to investigators. The boy sent a sexually explicit video to Mitchell, who allegedly told the boy he wanted to see him masturbate, said police.

The conversations ended in December 2014, police said.

Pennsylvania law bars sex offenders from adopting children — but not from having children through surrogacy or ART.

“If it is correct that one of these men is a convicted sex offender then this is deeply concerning. Local authorities must investigate immediately, including exploring removal of the child as an urgent consideration,” Helen Gibson of Surrogacy Concern told Reduxx. “Unfortunately this is not the first case of a sex offender procuring a child from a surrogate mother that we have come across; we fear this is the tip of the iceberg. Vetting of commissioning parents in surrogacy is virtually nonexistent and is not comparable with checks we see in adoption.”

Zoom Out:

This couple is not the first to purchase a child through the fertility industry, despite existing criminal records.

Baby Gammy

One of the most well-known examples is the Baby Gammy controversy, in which Australian husband and wife David John Farnell and Wenyu Wendy Li hired a surrogate in Thailand, Pattaramon Chanbua, who carried twins for them. When the twins were born, everyone discovered that one of the twins had Down syndrome. The Australian couple then abandoned the baby with Down syndrome, named Gammy, and left him in Thailand with Chanbua. They brought their daughter, Pippa, home with them. Afterward, it was discovered that Farnell is a registered sex offender.

The Australian government decided that the “least unsatisfactory” option was for Pippa to remain in the home with Farnell, though she was given a book explaining her father’s crimes, and he was banned from being alone with her.

“In essence, the document records, in terms a young child will learn to understand, the history and method of Mr Farnell’s offending,” Justice Thackray said in his judgment at the time. “It is ­designed to help Pipah understand why she is not permitted to spend time alone with her father, and serves as a reminder to the safety network of the need for vigilance.”

YouTuber Shane Dawson

Another controversial example is that of YouTuber Shane Dawson and his husband, Ryland Adams. The two publicly discussed the surrogacy process, frequently using dehumanizing language, joking about how they would teach their future children they “bought your mommy!” and joking about which embryos they would keep, and which they would destroy. Their surrogate eventually had twins, but Dawson’s troubling history of sexual behavior towards children shocked many.

Dawson publicly made numerous sexual comments about children, including some as young as six years old, joked about raping children, and said he had repeatedly searched online for videos of child sexual abuse, including of babies.

Even worse is an audio clip from ‘Shane and Friends’ where he recalled a moment of asking someone to have sex with his dog. ‘If I had a child, which is the same as a dog to me,’ he said. ‘Well, I guess when they’re a baby you don’t want to picture someone f*cking them.’ His co-host shared a news story of a man who raped a 4-month-old infant and killed her.

Shane laughed and declared, ‘Amazing!’ Then he speculated how exactly the baby would have died during the sex act.

There are numerous other examples of pedophiles and sex offenders who obtained access to children through surrogacy.

The Bottom Line:

Children should not be treated as items which people are entitled to purchase, but the completely unregulated fertility industry prioritizes the wishes of would-be parents over the rights of children. And the safety of children is not prioritized in the least, unlike with adoption.

As Them Before Us founder Katy Faust stated on Twitter, “This isn’t adoption. And that’s by design… no part of this process considers the best interest of the child. It is a market based delivery system for any and every adult to acquire children. Any one of the above suggestions would displease the customers and deplete profits. The industry must be opposed at all costs.”

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