These networks took hold and strengthened through the 1990s, with relationships set up between institutions and societal sectors beyond the university. After leaving the deanship, the University Council nominated Soto to the Constitutionality Court, although there were persistent rumors that he was selling diplomas and certificates. However, his application was accepted because his involvement in these felonies could not be proved because no credible evidence was presented. Two of his performances in the Constitutionality Court showed possible political compromise: first, he voted to validate an illegal adoption network and, then he voted in favor of the registration as a presidential candidate of general Efraín Ríos Montt, despite the prohibition of the 1985 Constitution, which does not allowed as a candidate anybody that had been part of a coup d'état. In those years, adoption networks operating in Guatemala could collect up to US$60,000 per child and went from delivering 1200 children in 1997 to more than four thousand in 2004.