ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The Florida woman accused of plotting to sell her newborn son says she wanted to give her child a better life.
Stephanie Fleming, 22, told the Orlando Sentinel in a jail interview that she thought her boy, Aidan, would be adopted when she took part in the alleged scheme along with her mother, Patty Bigbee, and the mother's boyfriend, Lawrence Works.
Bigbee and Works were arrested in a Daytona Beach parking lot Nov. 5 when they tried to exchange Aidan with undercover agents for a $30,000 check, the state says.
"I didn't know what she was doing," Fleming said. "If I had, I wouldn't have let it happen."
But Susan Murphy of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement countered: "Our investigation to date has demonstrated that all three individuals were deeply engaged in the sale of the child. Bigbee, Works and Fleming each stood to gain monetarily."
Bigbee and Works declined to be interviewed.
Aidan has been put in foster care and a court eventually will decide his fate.
"I hope he has the best life that a kid could ever have," Fleming said. "I hope he has a better life than me."
