A woman 'sold' in a black market adoption has been reunited with her long lost mother 34 years after she was snatched from her arms.
Sara Hudson and her birth mother, Kathleen Rhodes, were separated in a Long Island hospital parking lot by late Brooklyn lawyer and rabbi Seymour Fenichel - the ringleader of an illegal adoption scam - in 1976.
At a gas station nearby, the newborn was handed over to an older Manhattan woman desperate for a child.
After tracking her birth mother on Facebook, Mrs Hudson and her mother embraced for the first time since she was born last week.
Tearful: Kathleen Rhodes of Miller Place Long Island was reunited with her biological daughter Sara Hudson, 34, whom she hasn't seen since birth
In an emotional reunion captured by the New York Post, Mrs Rhodes, now 53, said: ''I have been waiting for you to find me. I've always loved you. I've always thought about you.'
'I'm sorry it took me so long,' Mrs Hudson replied, hugging her mother in the Rhodes' Smithtown, Long Island home. Mrs Hudson also discovered she has four sisters.
She said she began the search for her biological mother last year after a medical scare, and was shocked to learn about Fenichel, who conducted hundreds of black-market adoptions in the 1970s and 80s.
Family: (L-R) Caitlyn, 23, Ashley, 26, matriarch Kathleen Rhodes, Sara Hudson, 34, Brittany, 24, and Taylor, 21, pose with their new-found sister
Fenichel, with his daughter, Deborah Greenspan, and Harriet and Lawrence Lauer of Brooklyn, was busted in 1988.
A 144-count indictment by the state attorney general charged they 'sold babies to the highest bidder,' and 'forced mothers to falsify birth certificates and coerced those who wavered into giving up their babies, using emotional and financial intimidation,' according to the Post.
In a plea deal, Fenichel, Greenspan and the Lauers avoided jail. Fenichel was disbarred and died in 1994 at age 70.
Mrs Rhodes said she was 18 when she got pregnant. Fearing she could not care for her baby at such a young age, she dialed a number from a newspaper ad targeting expectant mothers considering adoption. The ad instructed callers to ask for 'Sister Marie'.
'All along, I thought I was dealing with nuns,' Mrs Rhodes said.
She recalled the woman on the other line asking immediately what race, hair colour and eye colour she and her baby's father had. Fenichel catered to mostly Jewish couples.
Innocent: Sara Hudson at age six in her adoptive grandmother's back yard in Rockville Centre, Long Island
Mrs Rhodes, afraid of telling her parents about the pregnancy, said Fenichel convinced her to move to an apartment near St John's Hosptial, now St Catherine of Siena, in Smithtown. For two months, he paid her rent and medical bills, and gave her a $100 allowance for food and clothes.
She described speaking to a woman who identified herself as the 'sister' of the woman who would adopt baby Sara. As she recently learned, her daughter's adoptive mother has no sisters.
Two days after the birth, Mrs Rhodes was discharged in a wheelchair. In the parking lot of the hospital the 'sister' arrived and snatched the baby from her arms.
'She suddenly grabbed the baby, jumped in a car with Fenichel and drove off,' Mrs Rhodes recalled.
At the time of last week's reunion, Mrs Hudson's adoptive mother, who was 32 at the time, recalled waiting nearby to receive the newborn.
Spotting a police car stationed close by, she was paralysed by fear: 'Would they arrest us because we were taking someone's baby?' she asked in an interview with the Post.
Years lost: Sara Hudson, here as a teenager, lived for decades not knowing the truth behind her black market adoption
The retired teacher, now 66 and divorced, declined to be named.
'I wanted that baby. I would have killed for that baby,' she said.
The woman said she left the logistics of the adoption to her husband, who was a lawyer. Mrs Hudson's adoptive father recalled paying Fenichel $10,000.
Mrs Hudson, who had two step-siblings, said she never felt as though she fit into the family. She moved out of her adoptive home and attended boarding school in the Adirondacks at age 12. She later moved to Richmond, Virginia, married and became an Emergency Medical Technician.
Last year, Mrs Hudson almost died from a blood clot in her lung. Not knowing her medical history, she began her search for her birth parents.
While New York's adoption records are sealed, Mrs Hudson's parents remembered the name 'Catherine Akeson,' Mrs Rhodes maiden name.
And on June 1, Mrs Hudson and her husband discovered a microfilm of a 1977 Smithtown phone book with a listing for John W. Akeson - her grandfather.
Records linked his name to a Kathleen Rhodes. Mrs Hudson wrote her mother on Facebook: 'I was born in June of 1977 in Smithtown, NY, and I am looking for information about my family.'
'Oh my God, it's her!' Mrs Rhodes recalled screaming after she read the note.
Mrs Rhodes married Mrs Hudson's father, Larry, six years after she was born. They had four more daughters: Ashley, now 26, Brittany, 24, Caitlyn, 23, and Taylor, 21.
When each daughter turned 16, Rhodes told each of the children about 'the baby.' The family marked every June 18 with a birthday cake in her honour and wondered if she would after find and contact the family.
Mrs Hudson said she was relieved they had remembered her for so long.
'I never knew if I was wanted,' she said. 'Now I feel much more connected.'
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