3 January 29 - February 4, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | 3 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ ORLANDO DUE DILIGENCE A FLORIDA WOMAN SUES AN IVF CLINIC AFTER ALLEGEDLY BIRTHING SOMEONE ELSE’S BABY. BY ALEX DELUCA A Florida woman is suing an Or- lando-area fertility clinic after an in vitro fertilization (IVF) mix-up allegedly led to her giving birth to someone else’s biological child. In a lawsuit filed against the Fertility Cen- ter of Orlando and doctor Milton McNichol on January 9, a 41-year-old woman and her 43-year-old partner — identified in the suit only as Jane Doe and John Doe — say they wanted to start a family and began working with the Longwood, Florida-based clinic to cryogenically store three viable embryos cre- ated using their own genetic material. In March 2025, clinic staff implanted one of the embryos into the woman’s uterus, and nine months later, on December 11, she gave birth to a “beautiful, healthy” baby girl. But while both the woman and her partner are white, the woman birthed a “very dark- skinned” baby who appears to be Asian- American, the couple’s attorney, Jack Scarola, tells New Times. Genetic testing later con- firmed that the newborn has no relationship to either parent. The lawsuit — which alleges the clinic im- planted the wrong embryo in the woman — asks a judge to immediately order the clinic to notify affected patients, pay for genetic test- ing, and disclose any cases in the past five years in which children born through its IVF services may not be biologically related to their parents. “The heartbreaking and unexplained in vi- tro fertilization errors described in our re- cently filed lawsuit remain unresolved,” Scarola, a partner at the West Palm Beach- based law firm Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barn- hart and Shipley, tells New Times. “While our clients continue to fall more deeply in love with a beautiful little girl who is someone else’s child, they are also living with the un- bearable knowledge that there may be one or more of their own children unknowingly in the care of strangers.” Scarola says that to make matters worse, the clinic has been “totally uncooperative” in helping remedy the error. He adds that another fertility patient could have given birth to his clients’ biologi- cal child and, in the absence of any obvi- ous racial differ- ence, may never know they are not raising their own baby. “[Other patients] need to know about what has happened here. Presumably, there is some client of that clinic whose baby we have, who has a right to know that we have that baby,” he says. “And as much as my clients have fallen in love with this child and would be very happy if they never had to give her up, they recognize the fact that her genetic parents and she herself have a right to be united with one another.” McNichol is the medical director at the Longwood fertility center, where he “leads a compassionate, patient-focused team dedi- cated to providing the most advanced fertility treatments,” according to the clinic’s website. The board-certified reproductive endocrinol- ogist has more than 20 years of experience in fertility care, having obtained his medical de- gree from Loma Linda University and com- pleted his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at White Memorial Medical Cen- ter in Los Angeles. Florida Department of Health records show the agency previously investigated a complaint against McNichol after a routine inspection at the clinic in June 2023 revealed that some staff were not properly registered, important equipment and medication were missing, and employees were, in some cases, using “inappropriate sterilization techniques.” McNichol was reprimanded with a $5,000 fine and required to complete a five-hour rules and ethics course and a five-hour risk management course. His medical license re- mains active. Neither the fertility clinic nor McNichol responded to New Times’ requests for com- ment by phone or email. The clinic referred New Times to a public relations firm, which had not responded as of publication. While the lawsuit was originally filed in Palm Beach County, a judge ordered it trans- ferred to either Orange County or Seminole County. The fertility center is based in Long- wood, a suburb of Seminole County just north of Orlando. Scarola says the couple re- sides in South Central Florida. Although IVF clinic mix-ups are believed to be extremely rare, the couple’s case isn’t the first of its kind. In 2019, a New York couple sued a Califor- nia fertility clinic, alleging its doctors im- planted embryos that belonged to two other couples, a discovery the plaintiffs made after giving birth to twins. In 2021, two couples sued a different California clinic after a mix- up there led the couples to spend several months raising each other’s biological chil- dren before they swapped. And last year, a Georgia woman sued a fertility clinic after she gave birth to a child that was not hers, only to eventually give the child up to his bio- logical parents – effectively making the woman an unwitting surrogate. There’s notably no federal regulation of IVF in the United States to prevent mix-ups, Dov Fox, a law professor at the University of San Diego, told NBC News in February 2025. There’s also no federal mandate requiring U.S. clinics to report such incidents, he said. [email protected] | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS A Florida woman is suing a fertility clinic after an in vitro fertilization (IVF) mix-up allegedly led to her giving birth to someone else’s biological child. Photo by Government of Alberta/Flickr ▼ FLORIDA UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES MIAMI DEBATES CUBAN DEPORTATIONS ACROSS FLORIDA AFTER NEW REPORT. BY B. SCOTT MCLENDON “B e careful what you wish for” might just be one of the oldest lessons in the book; it’s likely older than the 2,700-year-old King Midas myth that offers this insight. But some are still learning the hard way, like the scores of Republican Cu- bans in Florida who voted for President Donald Trump, only to find themselves on the business end of his deportation machine. According to reporting by the New York Times, Trump is deporting Cubans from Florida in record numbers, booting more than 1,600 Cu- bans from the country in 2025 alone (more than double the number deported in 2024, the last year of President Joe Biden’s term). For many Cubans in Florida, the deportations come as a shock to a voting bloc that supported Trump’s return to power — despite his very clearly ex- pressed will to head the largest deportation op- eration in United States history. The revelation caused a firestorm of com- ments on a Reddit post this week. “Damn leopards,” quipped one user, alluding to the famous tongue-in-cheek line feigning shock about a predator behaving like a predator. “Did they think the leopards were only inter- ested in Venezuelans?” another commented on the r/politics thread. “Did they think the leopards know the difference? Lol, the leopards hate them all and call them all Mexicans, so good luck with that lifetime of subservience to Republicans.” Some were quick to point out that many be- ing deported couldn’t vote if they weren’t citi- zens, “but their families did,” the commenter continued. “Their social circles did. And they supported this crap.” A poll from Florida International University, conducted in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, found 68 percent of Cuban-American voters in Miami-Dade County said they would vote for Trump. According to reporting from NBC, about 70 percent of Cuban-Americans in Florida voted for Trump. The article also riled up dozens of users in a post to the Miami Reddit community. It garnered more than 70 comments on r/Miami before a moderator removed it less than 24 hours later. “Documented or ‘legal’ Cubans in Florida do not want any other Cubans who they aren’t re- lated to coming here and eventually earning the same status they have,” one Miami commenter opined. “Some twisted, narcissistic shit.” “They get what their family members voted for,” wrote another. “I do not enjoy someone else’s misfortune, but this is karma,” another user said. According to the Times, the Trump administra- tion has overseen a similar increase in deportations for other nationalities. “The difference is that Cu- bans had not previously been targeted as aggres- sively for removal,” the Times reported. “Regular deportation flights to Cuba began in January 2017, under President Barack Obama, paused during the coronavirus pandemic, and restarted in 2023.” Trump has pretty much sealed any would-be Cuban immigrant’s chances of coming to the U.S. by banning certain visas from the country in June 2025 and ending a family reunification pro- gram in December 2025. The same month, Trump paused all Cuban immigration applica- tions, “including pending naturalization, resi- dency and asylum applications,” according to the Times. “It’s the most sweeping rollback of Cuban mi- gration channels since the Cold War,” María José Espinosa Carrillo, the executive director of the Cen- ter for Democracy in the Americas, told the Times. [email protected] ALTHOUGH IVF CLINIC MIX-UPS ARE BELIEVED TO BE EXTREMELY RARE, THE COUPLE’S CASE ISN’T THE FIRST OF ITS KIND.
