Bloomberg: How a Billionaire's 'Baby Project' Ensnared Dozens of Women (Gift link)

[Dennis Donovan]

Bloomberg - How a Billionaire’s ‘Baby Project’ Ensnared Dozens of Women

Disgraced tycoon Greg Lindberg built a network of egg donors and surrogates. Several say he conned them—and that US fertility clinics helped him do it.



By Jackie Davalos and Sophie Alexander
December 2, 2024 at 6:00 AM EST

As Anya walked into the fertility clinic for an appointment to have her eggs retrieved, she was already starting to panic. The modern miracle of in vitro fertilization has scary moments for all women, but she had extra reason to be nervous.

A native of Kazakhstan, Anya was working in the US as a model and actress. (The name is a pseudonym.) Her billionaire boyfriend had swept her off her feet, promising her a family and a loving future in the States. The only catch, he told her, was that he wanted kids yesterday, so she’d need to begin the IVF process as soon as possible. Then, if fertilization was successful, a surrogate would carry the embryo to term. If Anya didn’t start IVF, he’d dump her and move on.

Her boyfriend attached several other conditions, too. He directed her to a clinic in Chicago and said to pose as an acquaintance of his, tell them he was paying her the standard-ish $10,000 for her donation and sign forms waiving her rights to the eggs, including parental rights if any of them became children. He said he’d consider her the kid or kids’ mother, though, and would set her up with $1.5 million. Anya followed through with the lies and the forms. In preparation for the retrieval, she injected herself with hormones for weeks to kick her ovaries into overdrive. She endured the mood swings, the bloating, the painful cramps. But as she sat half-naked on the table with a sheet of doctor’s-office paper draped over her lower half, her boyfriend had just about all the power. If she ever fell out with him, or he found someone else, or he just changed his mind, she’d be screwed.

A person present that day, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, says Anya’s distress was obvious. Instead of asking if she was OK, or offering her more time to think things over, the clinicians pressed on with the retrieval, this person says. And they succeeded, collecting more than 20 eggs.

The following year, in 2019, a surrogate gave birth to Anya’s biological son, Oliver (also a pseudonym). For Anya, who’s now 33 and living in Los Angeles, it’s plainly been the joy of her life to know that Oliver is in the world. But she hasn’t seen her 5-year-old son in almost four years, because her now-ex-boyfriend used the papers she signed to cut her out of the boy’s life.

By then, Anya knew there were other women like her out there. What she didn’t know was just how many. She didn’t want to comment for this story and signed a contract barring her from disclosing the identity of Oliver’s father. To learn it, and further details of their arrangement, Bloomberg Businessweek reviewed independently sourced legal, medical and financial records, and conducted dozens of interviews with the man’s former employees, clinic workers, ex-girlfriends, egg donors and surrogates. Oliver’s father is a disgraced insurance tycoon named Greg Lindberg.

/snip

[Clouds Passing]

1. Disgusting human being, we don't need 1 more clone of him, let alone 20

What is it with these billionaires and millionaires thinking it’s OK for them to have these massive amount of children? It looks to be a trend. So they wanna populate the world with their ugliness, arrogance, extreme narcissism, and psychopathy? What a terrible idea for humanity!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. A long article, worth coming back to finish later. This is more than just an 'ewww' story about ...

... yet another skeevy bad-haircut billionaire with bizarre delusions.

It's a revealing look at how thoroughly UNREGULATED the IVF industry is -- and yes, it's an industry, not a medical institution. One more example, even though no more were needed, of how an unregulated capitalist market quickly turns into a horror show at the hands of those with more capital than can possibly be justified on any other principle than total lack of regulation. As the saying goes -- a free market without regulation is like a hockey game without referees. Everyone should know to expect disastrous consequences, even though the details of the disaster take unpredictable turns and make each case seemingly unique -- it's always the same pattern, at a fundamental level.