By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

A 52 year-old Louisiana woman and convicted pedophile pleaded guilty yesterday to selling two children to a couple in exchange for a cockatoo and $175.

According to a report by The Advocate, Donna Louise Greenwell pleaded guilty yesterday to two counts of sale of a minor in connection with a deal she made with a couple to given them two children who had been living with her for the past year. The children, a four year-old girl and five year-old boy, were in her care after their biological parents left them with her.

Police said the biological mother of the children is believed to be a fugitive in the Lake Charles, La., area and they have been unable to locate the children’s father.

According to the couple who received the children, Paul James Romero and his wife Brandy Lynn, they met Greenwell after she responded to a flier offering a cockatoo for $1,500. They said they assumed Greenwell would use the $175 they gave her to transfer legal custody of the children to them.

The Romeros pleaded guilty to the same charges of sale of a minor and received a five-year suspended sentence in exchange for testimony against Greenwell.

Greenwell was charged with kidnapping and is being held in lieu of $100,000 bond.

She is employed as a cattle-hauling truck driver and has a criminal history dating back to the 1980s.

Authorites say Greenwell is a convicted pedophile and that the case could have wider implications.

The children are now in state custody.

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