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An Arkansas couple have pleaded guilty to trying to sell their baby boy to a stranger at a campsite for $1,000 and a six-pack of beer.
Darien Urban, 22, and Shalene Ehlers, 21, struck two separate plea deals on Dec. 22 that will send the father to prison while the mother stays free on probation, according to Benton County court records.
Officers from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office arrested the couple in September 2024 for the attempted baby-sale after being tipped off that the couple had signed a letter granting custody to a man at the campsite, according to Benton County court records.
The written and signed contract, which was shown to investigators by witnesses, read: “I, Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers, are signing our rights over to [Cody Martin] of our baby for $1,000 on 9/21/24,” the records show.
Both parents signed, then added a disclaimer.
“After signing this there will be no changing y’all two’s minds to never contact again,” court records showed.
A witness to the sick deal used the phone in the manager’s office at the Beaver Lake Hide-A-Way Campground in Rogers — which lies a few miles east of the Oklahoma border — to call police, according to a court records.
The couple were initially charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to accept consideration for relinquishment of a minor, the court records show.
Urban pleaded guilty to one count of attempted accepting compensation for adoption, but prosecutors dropped one count of endangering the welfare of a minor.
A judge accepted Urban’s plea deal, and he was sentenced to three years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections with an additional three-year sentence suspended.
Ehlers pleaded guilty to both counts — attempting to accept compensation and endangering the child’s welfare — against her. But Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren suspended the charges in her plea deal and placed her on state-supervised probation for six years, according to court records.
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