Mom-of-thirteen who had twins in her late 60s had them stripped from her after her dark

Allan and Bri put together a gift basket for the twins’ third birthday on November 3, filling it with their favorite toys, books and a dress for the little girl who loved playing dress-up.

But the foster parents, whose names have been changed to protect the children, had no idea whether the twins would ever receive it. 

In September, the toddlers were taken from the only home they had ever known and placed with a wealthy retired couple in New York who are at the center of an extraordinary surrogacy scandal. 

In 2023, MaryBeth Lewis, 69, already a mother to 13 other children, allegedly forged her husband’s signature on surrogacy papers to have twins using donor embryos without his consent. 

Bob, 70, reported his wife to authorities and the twins were placed with Allan and Bri as newborns that November while MaryBeth faced around 30 criminal charges. 

For nearly three years, Allan and Bri raised the twins as their own, until Bob dropped the charges and a judge ruled that the Lewises were their legal parents. 

Allan and Bri mounted a desperate appeal but lost – and this year they were ordered to hand the children over. 

Speaking out for the first time, the devastated foster parents told the Daily Mail of their heartbreak at losing the twins they brought home as newborns. 

‘From the moment we saw them in the hospital to the minute we had to turn them over. They were our kids and we loved them unconditionally,’ Bri said.

Allan, an engineer, and Bri, a stay-at-home mom, had already spent more than a decade fostering children when they got the call about newborn twins in November 2023.

Within an hour, they were at the hospital. The 40-year-old parents had hoped to eventually adopt the twins, who quickly became siblings to their biological teenage sons, the couple said.

The older boys taught the twins to play tag and gave them piggyback rides. Allan put up a mini basketball hoop for the twin boy eager to keep up with his older brothers.

‘Our boys play lacrosse, and he would love to grab their lacrosse sticks and put on their lacrosse helmet and pretend he was going out to play catch with the older boys,’ Allan said.

Losing their siblings has been ‘hard on them too,’ Allan said.

Bri said that she loved being a mom to the twins, and frequently took them on long walks and trips to farmers markets.

‘We were there for everything. We didn’t miss a beat with them. They were in a home where they were doted on. Everyone in our home loves them so much,’ she said.

The family’s final hours with the twins before they were taken were agonizing, the couple said.

The family is now exploring their legal options with their attorney, Bob Flores.

‘The big question is how did the court reach the decision it reached if it was looking at the question of what is in the best interest of the child,’ he said.

The battle over the twins began before they were born. 

Bob discovered about eight weeks before their due date that his wife had arranged for a surrogate to carry the twins in September 2023, when a court order recognizing them as the parents arrived in the mail.

MaryBeth, a former OBGYN nurse who had her last biological child at 62, allegedly got an IVF clinic to transfer two remaining embryos to a surrogate without Bob’s knowledge, the New York Times reported. 

The embryos were created with donor eggs and sperm. 

She admitted to the newspaper that she signed Bob’s name on the surrogacy agreement in February 2023. At a September court hearing on Zoom, she said she logged into a separate account under his name, left the camera off and grunted in response to the judge. 

The allegations included attempted kidnapping, which was later dropped, a count Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker described to the Daily Mail as ‘a novel charge.’ 

A temporary 2023 protection order barred both Lewises from contacting the twins. MaryBeth returned home from the hospital with two empty car seats, according to the newspaper. 

But Bob had a change of heart after realizing that reporting his wife could break up their family and leave them facing ruinous legal bills. 

He told a social services investigator that he and MaryBeth had agreed to raise the twins together to keep their family intact, according to the Times. 

The couple then signed a new contract with the surrogate, this time bearing Bob’s genuine signature, confirming that they intended to be the children’s parents.

Judge Mathew K McCarthy ruled on October 20, 2025 that MaryBeth and Bob were the twins’ rightful parents, reaffirming the status first granted before Marybeth’s alleged fraud came to light, court documents show.

Three days later, MaryBeth’s criminal charges were reduced to just three misdemeanors, after Bob took the stand in her defense, SCDA Baker told the Daily Mail. 

Bob testified that he was okay with his wife representing him during the surrogacy proceedings and did not mean to report her, DA Baker said.  

MaryBeth pleaded guilty to just three misdemeanor counts of attempting to offer false instrument for filing, and was ordered to pay a $250 fine, as well as register with the New York State DNA Registry. 

The children were ordered into the Lewises’ custody, but lawyers for Allan and Bri then sought a stay from an appellate court, delaying the custody transfer. 

Speaking to the Daily Mail weeks after the October ruling, MaryBeth claimed the children had been taken illegally. 

‘I have children out there and I want them back,’ she said. ‘They were basically kidnapped from DSS.’

Following the appeal and a court-ordered hearing in May, Judge McCarthy again declared the Lewises the twins’ legal parents on July 15, 2026. 

The twins were transferred to the Lewises’ home in September.

When contacted again on Thursday about how the twins were adjusting to their new home, MaryBeth told the Daily Mail: ‘Oh, you wrote a terrible story about me,’ before hanging up.

The Steuben County Department of Social Services declined to comment on the twins’ status. 

Allan and Bri are now left wondering if they will ever see the twins they loved so much again.

Through tears, Bri said she wanted a record of that love in case they never get the chance to tell them themselves.

‘If we are never to see them again I want them to be able to read your words and know we love them.’