RALEIGH - Allison Quets, obsessed with the twins she gave up, stalked the Apex couple who adopted them before taking the infants to Canada in late December, a prosecutor said Friday.

Quets twice drove through the neighborhood where Denise and Kevin Needham lived, and once posed as Denise Needham while trying to get the twins' immunization records from their doctor, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler said in a hearing at Raleigh's federal courthouse.

U.S. Magistrate James Gates said Quets risked all to be with her children and ordered her held at the Wake County jail without bail until her trial on a charge of international parental kidnapping.

"She is deeply motivated," Gates said in his ruling. "She put her career, her liberty, her reputation on the line to be reunited with these children."

Gates also said that he could not be assured that Quets, given her previous disregard for a Florida court's decision to grant the Needhams full custody, wouldn't act rashly again.

"She did not stand by and allow the process to play out," Gates said. "She took it in her own hands to effectuate the results."

Quets, an engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin, is highly educated, has money and an international network of supporters, and that might make it too easy to leave the country, Gates said.

Quets' lawyers protested the government's portrayal, saying that Quets was in a weakened state during her pregnancy and immediately regretted her decision in August 2005 to give up the twins to the Needhams.

Quets, 49, wiped away tears as she listened during the hearing.

Quets' lawyers said they would appeal next week.

"Allison has struggled and fought for her children for a year and a half," defense attorney Dennis H. Sullivan Jr. said in court.

Florida proceedings

Quets, who had a troubled pregnancy, met the Needhams while still pregnant through her former boyfriend John Gurley, a relative of Kevin Needham. She feared that she would be unable to care for the twins.

Quets has sued to get the adoption overturned in Florida, where it took place, and needs to attend those court proceedings, Sullivan said, noting that the Needhams have asked a Florida judge to make Quets pay their legal fees and are trying to have Quets' assets frozen.

A 26-page order written by a Florida judge was entered into evidence Friday in the federal courtroom in Raleigh but sealed afterward by Gates.

The order granted full custody to the Needhams, and she was appealing the decision when she fled to Canada with the twins, Holly and Tyler. An FBI agent testified Friday that the twins' legal last name was still Quets, and that Allison Quets' parental rights had not been terminated, pending the appeal of the adoption case.

Agent Michael Sutton said that Quets plotted for months to thwart the Florida court's decision by securing passports for the 17-month-old twins and taking Holly on a trip to Canada during a weekend visit when she was supposed to stay in the Durham apartment she had rented, Sutton said.

Bowler added that he felt Quets was still a threat to the Needhams and the twins. "Her focus is not the well-being of the children, it's getting her way," Bowler said.

Sutton said Quets also lied to a doctor that she had full custody of the twins, and said she paid a Canadian immigration attorney while researching that country's extradition and adoption laws.

He read from several e-mail messages between Quets and Denise Needham, sent before the adoption, in which Quets asked the Needhams to pay $40,000 to $50,000 to cover the medical costs of the in-vitro fertilization and other medical expenses from the birth. The Needhams initially balked, and Quets began looking to make arrangements with other possible adoptive parents, Sutton testified.

The Needhams eventually agreed to pay Quets $30,000, Sutton said.

Quets' attorneys said it is not unusual for adoptive parents to pay out-of-pocket expenses of birth mothers. They also said that Quets suffered from severe nausea during her pregnancy and had to be fed intravenously. She was afraid that she would be unable to care for the twins.

TV producer appears

A friend of Quets, Mariana Leman, offered to allow Quets to live in her Cape Canaveral, Fla., home until the trial. Leman said she had become a close friend during the legal fight to regain custody and said Quets would never endanger the children.

"She was fighting for the twins," Leman said.

Leman was escorted to and from the courtroom by a television producer who indicated he was freelancing for "Dr. Phil," the nationally syndicated talk show featuring Dr. Phil McGraw.