Sex Offender Seeks to Halt Adoption

A juvenile court commissioner in Riverside, Calif., has halted the adoption of a 2-year-old girl named Heaven to consider uniting the child with her sex-offender father.

A Texas couple wants to adopt the child, who has heart defects and mild cerebral palsy, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I cannot conceive of a judge sending a child into a registered sex offender's home," the would-be adoptive mother, Glenda, told the newspaper. She asked that her full name not be used.

Heaven's father, Thomas Joseph Briere, pleaded guilty in 2002 to raping a developmentally disabled woman who could not give consent and to having unlawful sex with her 16-year-old sister.

He says he has a job, an apartment and a new wife, and is making efforts to meet all the requirements to regain custody of Heaven.