Adoptions Together, a Silver Spring nonprofit, was close to hiring Bruce C. Bereano as its lobbyist earlier this month, but its executive director said the agency changed its mind Monday after learning that Bereano filed an erroneous disclosure form that involved the nonprofit.

Executive Director Janice Goldwater said negotiations with Bereano were terminated after he claimed that one of his clients, Columbia-based Dockside Solutions, was "doing business as" Adoptions Together. She said that was an inaccurate description of the companies' relationship.

She also said Bereano was not authorized to send a document via fax to the state Department of Human Resources in April in which he claimed on the cover sheet that the nonprofit organization was his client in negotiations over a $42 million foster care contract.

Pointing at a copy of the document during an interview yesterday, Goldwater said: "That was wrong. He shouldn't have done that. And if we had known he had done that, we would have responded to it immediately."

In his second letter to The Sun in two days protesting the newspaper's coverage of his activities, Bereano said yesterday that he filed the registration because he represented Dockside Solutions at a meeting in April in which the company was acting as government-relations consultant to Adoptions Together. He said he corrected his filing yesterday to omit any reference to Adoptions Together at Dockside's request.

Bereano wrote that since his 1994 mail fraud conviction he has "worked enormously hard to rebuild my lobbying practice and my life, to serve my clients honestly and well, and to act with integrity and in full compliance with the law."

Goldwater said Bereano offered in March to lobby for Adoptions Together without compensation. She said the organization thanked him for the offer but hesitated because "we understood he had a challenged reputation."

"He had a lot to offer, but he brought a lot of baggage," she said.

She said Bereano gave a presentation to a committee of the organization's board of directors April 17 about why he should become the group's lobbyist. Goldwater said that about 10 days ago the executive committee, swayed by his reputation for effectiveness, was prepared to recommend to the full board that it hire Bereano. She said that instead of accepting his pro bono offer, the committee wanted to offer him a $250-a-month retainer.

Dawn Musgrave, Adoptions Together's general counsel, said that when Adoptions Together learned about the "very shocking" Dockside filing Monday, it notified Bereano that he would not be hired.

Goldwater said Dockside Solutions is still one of Adoptions Together's partners on the foster care contract.

"We're fully prepared to work this through so we can serve the children," Musgrave said.

If the contract survives a challenge from a rival bidder before the Board of Contract Appeals, Adoptions Together will lead a partnership that will attempt to find permanent homes for 500 Baltimore children in foster care.