A federal grand jury indicted an Illinois couple on charges of kidnapping and transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity with a minor. Nicole Eason, 37, and Calvin Eason, 46, formerly of Danville and Westville, Illinois, were previously charged by a criminal complaint and arrested on April 3, 2015, in Tucson, Arizona.
On Wednesday, the indictment was unsealed revealing that the couple was charged with two counts of kidnapping of a minor and one count of transportation of a minor. The couple has remained in custody since their arrest.
According to allegations in the criminal complaint, Nicole and Calvin Eason participated in an online adoption discussion board in 2006 and 2007, and sought to adopt a child through a process sometimes referred to as private “re-homing.” This practice is often associated with “disrupted” or failed adoptions, when an adoptive family places their child in another home because the adoptive family can no longer care for the child.
According to the complaint, the Easons communicated with a minor’s parents and allegedly misrepresented material facts about their background to gain the parents’ trust. The Easons also allegedly lied about having a home study “waiver,” which the parents believed was needed to transfer custody of their child. Based on the Easons’ false misrepresentations, the parents transported their child across state lines in 2007. Both Nicole and Calvin Eason allegedly sexually abused the child while he/she was in their custody.
The indictment further alleges that Nicole and Calvin Eason kidnapped a second minor in the same manner in 2008. The Easons allegedly transported the second minor across state lines.
The allegations and charges contained in the complaint and indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Reuters reported in 2013:
• Child welfare authorities had taken away both of Nicole Eason’s biological children years earlier. After a sheriff’s deputy helped remove the Easons’ second child, a newborn baby boy, the deputy wrote in his report that the “parents have severe psychiatric problems as well with violent tendencies.”
• The Easons each had been accused by children they were babysitting of sexual abuse, police reports show. They say they did nothing wrong, and neither was charged.
• The only official document attesting to their parenting skills – one purportedly drafted by a social worker who had inspected the Easons’ home – was fake, created by the Easons themselves.