A U.S. woman accused of kidnapping her twin toddlers from their adoptive parents was released Thursday on bail into the care of an eastern Ontario couple after spending a week in an Ottawa detention centre.

Allison Quets, 49, was arrested in Ottawa on Dec. 28 with the twins she gave birth to 17 months ago and gave up for adoption.
(Denise Muldoon/CBC)

Allison Lee Quets, of Durham, N.C., was detained on Dec. 28 after U.S. authorities issued an arrest warrant. Quets, the biological mother of twin toddlers, is accused of abducting them from a North Carolina couple who adopted the children.

Judge Charles Hackland of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa ruled that Quets, 49, could be set free provided her new address — at the home of a Renfrew, Ont., couple — was not revealed publicly. She must also surrender herself on Jan. 8 to Ottawa criminal justice authorities who will send her back to the U.S.

To ensure Quets will obey those conditions, authorities still hold almost $8,000 in cash and travellers' cheques that they seized from her at the time of her arrest. In addition, four people posted more than $10,000 in bail bonds.

Quets sat through most of the court proceedings with her head bowed and often held her hands against her forehead, hiding her eyes.

Earlier in the day, the judge imposed a publication ban on the names of the 17-month-old boy and girl Quets is accused of abducting. They have been returned to their adoptive parents.

Those who posted bonds to set Quets free hadn't known her for long.

They included the Renfrew couple with whom she is staying, who heard about her through an organization that supports women who gave up their children for adoption, and Mary Jo Formosa and her husband, who run a bed and breakfast in Kingston, Ont., where Quets arrived with the twins on Dec. 23 and stayed for five days.

"She'd walk out of the room to get a diaper or a toy and the tears would just well up in their eyes … and as soon as their mother came back, all was well with the world," Formosa told reporters outside the courtroom during a break.

She added that Quets planned to spend three months in a rented townhouse in Ottawa, but was arrested after she left Kingston.

Mary Jo Formosa of Kingston, Ont., said Quets and the twins arrived at her bed and breakfast on Dec. 23 and stayed for five days.
(CBC)

Quets's lawyer, Jeff Schroeder, said his client wants to go back to the United States to face federal and North Carolina state kidnapping charges.

Schroeder has said Quets suffered life-threatening complications while she was pregnant with the twins and has been trying to regain custody since 12 hours after they were put up for adoption.

Quets took the children on a visit Dec. 22 to 24 as allowed by a custody agreement, but authorities were alerted after they did not return.

She was charged federally with kidnapping, prompting the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to issue an arrest warrant.