Americans In Haiti Jail 'We Fear For Our Lives' !

[democracy1st]

Run time: 03:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LesQ87JSqBk   Posted on YouTube: February 07, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 07, 2010 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1426

 
Americans in Haiti Prison Pen Note Saying 'We're Afraid'


(Feb. 6) -- Eight of the 10 U.S. Baptist missionaries charged with child kidnapping in Haiti are pleading for help in a letter one of them slipped to a journalist through prison bars.

"We fear for our lives Here in Haiti," said the letter, which was signed by everyone in the Idaho church group except spokeswoman Laura Silsby, and her close aide, Charisa Coulter.

The arrested Americans covertly passed the note to an NBC News producer during a jailhouse interview on Saturday.

Also written on the scrap of paper was: "Please you must listen. We have No Way to Call. Court will NOT let us have a say with anything about trust for US. We only came as volunteers. We had NOTHING to do with any documents and have been lied to."

An investigating judge charged the Americans on Thursday with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without documentation.

The Baptist group, most of whose members are from two Idaho churches, had said they were rescuing abandoned children and orphans from the nation. UNICEF says that 380,000 youngsters fit that description even before the quake.

Silsby said she believed she had all the necessary documents to take the children.

But details have emerged that may prove otherwise.

The Dominican consul in Haiti said he warned Silsby her mission would be considered child trafficking if she lacked adoption papers signed by Haitian officials.

And the group's Haitian defense attorney, Edwin Coq, said Silsby knew the group couldn't remove the youngsters without proper paperwork. He characterized the other nine missionaries as unknowingly being caught up in actions they didn't understand.

Coq has now been accused of trying to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.

Coq denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans' families was his fee.

Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.

Coq orchestrated "some kind of extortion with government officials" that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/americans-in-haiti-prison-scribble-note-saying-were-afraid/19347793?icid=main|hp-desktop|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Famericans-in-haiti-prison-scribble-note-saying-were-afraid%2F19347793

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Maybe you should have thought about that before doing an "adoption raid" on Haiti?

[Faith No More]

2. Good, I hope you're terrified.

Maybe you'll stop and think about how you'd feel if a bunch of religious nuts came into this country after a natural disaster and tried to take children away. Idiots!!!!

[dballance]

Boo Hoo

Run time: 03:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LesQ87JSqBk   Posted on YouTube: February 07, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 07, 2010 By DU Member: dballance Views on DU: 1426

 
Keep praying to your God. I'm sure he will make it all work out. Those silly laws don't really apply to you when you're doing God's work - right?

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I am having a hard time feeling sorry for these people

One of the men is a firefighter in Topeka so there has been quite a bit of local coverage here. And it just looks worse for them every day. They went to Haiti to find some kids to bring back to their cult headquarters here in the US.

It's just repulsive.

[suzanner]

4. Trust but verify... I guess this wasn't covered in '24'.

[mudplanet]

5. 'We Fear For Our Lives' ! --------- Tough Shit

I'm having a hard time dredging up sympathy for folks that almost assuredly are international criminals. I'll suspend judgment until the trial, but I'm not buying into an idea that they should be somehow judged on a different standard than the rest of us because they're white, christian and American.

If it came out that these were folks that were active in efforts to help the imprisoned poor in the U.S., well, I'd support an effort to go down there and break them out. But something tells me these aren't those types of people.

As to buying them out of the clink - how do you think justice works in most of the undeveloped world? If you get in serious trouble almost anywhere in a small country in Latin America, ten, twenty, or thirty thousand dollars to the right officials will get you back out on the street within a year. Their only mistake was giving the officials the money up-front - just like with having you kitchen remodeled, you withhold the final payment until the work is completed.

The main difference in this country is - it's more expensive. Whether or not they had anything to do with it, do you think the Jon Benet family would have walked away from the death of their child without ever talking to the police if they had been poor? 80 percent of the people in U.S. prisons never received a fair trial - they are there through plea bargain. And the way plea bargains work is - the govt charges you with a list of very serious crimes - the longest and most serious shit they can possibly imagine given the circumstances. The "circumstances" include, importantly, how much attorney you can afford. If you're poor you face the prospect of battling a well funded and experienced legal team while you are armed with a lawyer who, even if he or she is competent, may very well be afraid to oppose or even antagonize the opposition because, as they'll explain to you, "you'll be gone and in prison tomorrow but I'll still have to work with these people and I have to make a living," So you opt for a certain five years in prison for something you may or may not have done against an almost certain 20 year or life sentence. You have no option - you can not fight it and win, whether you are innocent or guilty. Unless you are rich.

In small cities and communities, unless you are rich and can bring one in from out of town, you are not going to find a lawyer that will effectively oppose the State. They aren't going to stand up in court and suggest that the police officer is lying (even though 'testilying' is so common among police officers that it's a standing joke in many police stations) because this will antagonize the people in his community. There just aren't many Atticus Finches out there.

[old mark]

6. Evidently investigations into Silsby's business affairs have unearthed

several shady and illegal transactions on her part. I would be afraid myself if I had listened to her "plans" for starting an orphanage....
I am glad the Haitian police were on top of them.

mark

[juxtaposed]

7. I say go get their kids and give them to some haitian atheists

[Iggo]

8. Ouch!

That's some eye-for-an-eye shit right there.

Thank god they don't believe in...oh, wait...never mind.

[Joanne98]

10. An atheist would have kept the families together and helped the parents too.

[Joanne98]

9. They're completely guilty of the charges. The leader put her schedule

on her website. Her schedule.........Things to do list basically said go to Haiti get 100 children. Nothing about asking the parents nothing about papers. Just get them and come back.

She's a shady character.....

>>>>>>>>>

Baptist Laura Silsby who set off to 'rescue' orphans left behind debts and bad wages

The leader of the American missionaries imprisoned for alleged child abduction in Haiti has a history of divorce, bad debts, and unpaid wages back home.

Laura Silsby, 40, founded her New Life Children’s Refuge charity at an address in a still-unfinished development in a suburb of Boise, Idaho, in November.

A month later the $358,500 (£230,000) house was repossessed by the mortgage holder, MetLife Home Loans.

Ms Silsby, a divorced mother of young children, organised the Christian “rescue mission” that led to the arrest of the ten American Baptists for trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country.

Back home she runs a personal shopping service on the internet that earned her the eWomanNetwork’s International Businesswoman of the Year award in 2006.

Court records show, however, that she has repeatedly been sued for unpaid wages and bad debts — and has had at least nine driving violations since 1997.

According to the newspaper the Idaho Statesman 14 claims totalling $38,100, including two by the same employee, were filed against the PersonalShopper.com company over the past two years.

The Idaho department of labour found that $30,620 was owed to employees and also imposed a $4,000 fine. The company’s former marketing director went to court against Ms Silsby and PersonalShopper.com in October claiming five months of unpaid wages, totalling $22,016.

“In multiple e-mails during 2009, Ms Silsby repeatedly told the plaintiff that she had investors ‘committed,’ that the money was being ‘wired’ and that investors were going to be providing funds,” the suit says.

Ms Silsby, who is currently in a cell in Haiti, is due in court in Idaho for a civil jury trial on February 22.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7017161.ece

She probably follows the teachings of heretic Doug Coe. The family thinks it can do anything it wants and get away with it.

And Hillary better NOT get them out. She already in trouble for helping Family members in Honduras!

[Supply Side Jesus]

11. Welcome to the clink

enjoy your stay