MORE INTRIGUE IN PORT AU PRINCE: LAURA SILSBY IN MORE TROUBLE?

KATU-TV Portland (Oregon) reports tonight that Laura Silsby may be in for more trouble.

At first I thought this was a re-hash of Friday’s’s story, but unless I missed something, this is a new detail regarding the reason she continues to be held:

The judge is looking over new documents that could link the two women to possible illegal travel in addition to other allegations of kidnapping after the two led a mission to take 33 children out of Haiti to a Dominican Republic orphanage. Haiti’s investigation determined none of the children were orphans.

One of Silsby’s lawyers, Louis Ricardo Chachoute, denies there’s a problem. “Our clients are innocent because the documents are real there is no criminal conspiracy, no kidnapping.”

BTW, how many lawyers does this woman have, and who’s paying or them? And who says this is about documents?

TeamSilsby’s to-and fros on both sides of the island in the few days they were free to roam are confusing, and I don’t even want to try to set out a scheme here. (I’ve considered trying to work up a timeline).

Anne-christine d’Adesky outlines a lot of curious details involving Silsby and DR officials in her Special Report update. The “illegal travel” could be related to them–her suspected helpers in high places.

Or maybe more missing children. d’Adeksy mentions that Judge Saint-Vil was also investigating a separate case of the alleged movement of 200 Haitian children into the DR. I’m having trouble locating the original source on that, so I can’t link it directly. You can find it in her report linked above.

And whatever happened of those 40 other children anyway? The ones Silsby picked up early on and was barred from taking into the DR? Where did TeamSilsby get them and where did they go? So far, the only people who seem to be interested in that answer are bloggers and web sleuths.

We’d sure like to know why the Criders, John Requa, Nancy Rodriguez and the anonymous Texans from the Andrews First Baptist Church got out of Dodge so fast. too.

There’s enough mysteries here to keep Ellery Queen busy for the next six years.

It’s pretty clear the Haitian government wants this mess to go away so it can get back to the real business of putting the country back together. But, I have this growing feeling that the delay in Coulter’s release and the continued incarceration of Silsby is about much more than what Americans might consider the eccentricities of the Napoleonic Code and Haitian law. Are Saint-Vil and the prosecutor just sticking it to Silsby and Coulter, or are they playing good cop-bad cop dragging out the case while US authorities built a case stateside just in time for the release(s)? Certainly Silsby’s involved in enough shady dealings to pique the curiosity of law enforcement and the IRS. Or maybe there’s other reasons.

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24 Replies to “MORE INTRIGUE IN PORT AU PRINCE: LAURA SILSBY IN MORE TROUBLE?”

  1. Oh Man…this just keeps getting more and more convoluted. At this point, I would just like to know who is scratching whose back for what and why? If she does get released into the US, I hope there are officers waiting at the gate.

  2. hi I looked up illeagal travel and(not clear) it said something like you have to apply to tourism administration department for approval. So maybe the judge is going to release them but if they return to Haiti hes going to know about it (yuck yuck). He probably got wind of her remarks about returning to Haiti after this MESS is cleared up or WHATEVER YOU CALL IT (yuck yuck). I read the article and I thought that it was a document that showed up on Thursday, so its some new twist.

  3. I thought it was funny that the judge said he couldnt release Coulture because he couldnt find the official stamp. Is that the same stamp required to release children to leave Haiti. I think the judge is sticking it to them. GOOD!

  4. I was surprised to hear about the other Christian folks in the DR – I have been following this case closely and I didn’t find references to them until 2 weeks ago. I found it very odd they did not speak up in Silsby’s defense, even when they got back to the US.

    And, if this is a big “misunderstanding”, then why, oh why aren’t the 8 Christian missionaries publicly working to get Silsby released? If they truly believe Silsby is innocent and truly trust in their God, they shouldn’t be afraid to speak up for her! They are caught in a 20-20. If they truly believe she is innocent, they are “bearing false witness” by their current silence – they should be speaking out strongly for her innocence. If they believe she is guilty, they should be willing to do the right thing and implicate her! Instead they say things like “we would do it again” and “I was only on the bus to give out aid to the children” (Drew), etc.! I just can’t believe these people didn’t know what was going on! They must have had their nose stuck in their Bible to be so clueless. Either they are all a few bricks short of a load or they are very naive or, they are just covering up their own guilt. I’m waiting for one of them to have the guts to do the right thing, if they have knowledge of illegal activity, to come forth regardless of what it means to them personally! Be willing to truly suffer as Jesus did so the right thing is done here. Maybe the Haitian court would be merciful, I don’t know, but if any of these released 8 or the ones in the DR that got away know anything about illegal activity, they need to speak otherwise they are going to be judged by God for their INACTION. We are supposed to be living for the next world, not this world.

    And I remember seeing some references to 200 children and then 40 children – in addition to the 33 – and I wondered where they were.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Haiti winds up calling the rest of them back eventually. And perhaps the ones that were in the DR for questioning. Now that would be interesting.

    Keep up the good work in reporting this and the focus on this. This does appear to be much bigger than just Laura Silsby run amuck. Unless an American citizen has lived abroad or traveled to other countries, has experience in international adoption, and experience in dealing with fraud and sociopaths – they aren’t going to get it and see it for what it is. (Anon J)

  5. I live in the same city where the Meridian baptists hail from. Mum is the word here. Not a peep. The friends/families of the returned missionaries say that they “need to regroup and get connected to their families again after this ordeal.” that kind of says it all, I think. Ordeal? Okay, I guess if you’re comparing your experience to your “normal” life. But what you experienced was NOTHING compared to what was happening on the streets outside your jail cell.

  6. I knew you were from Idaho, but not Meridian. Do you know any of them?

    It’s funny how nobody is talking. I expect to see them on the mission circuit, but they are covering their ass right now. I wonder if they are lawyered up. Normal people would be, but they’re not normal.

    Speaking strictly as someone who has a legal background of sorts, Silsby is a lawyer’s worst nightmare with the mouth that never stops running. I’d love to know on what grounds her Boise lawyer has filed motion to dump.

    Whatever, it looks like the good folks of TeamSilsby are set to make their Great Leader their sacrificial lamb-or is that scapegoat? and walk away to do mischief elsewhere. Not to let the others off the hook, but I think the CVBC pepople in particular have no clue as to what they did was wrong. It’s like a cult out there.

    There are so many questions that nobody is asking, which I find curious, even in a old news cycle. Then, MSM takes things at face value. What about the note the MSNBC producer got? Where’s the 40 other kids? What’s with Sean Lankford? The whole real estate thing glzes me over. And a lot of others.n

  7. I don’t know any of them. Not being in the religious circle means I am out of the loop for most of what goes on here. Not only is the Baptist population large here, this area is home to one of the largest LDS populations outside of Utah. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a church of some denomination.

    Just found this archived transcript from CNN. It is old, but it talks about the police officer the group bribed for paperwork (Illegal travel papers). The commentary of the reporters, and their suppositions, are quite interesting.
    Transcript is here.

  8. I forgot to mention there is a lot of other news, so you have to scroll down to find the Haiti segment.

    DB, good questions. There are SO many threads to this story, and it is amazing how many have been dropped. Rather than a piece of fabric, they are weaving cheese cloth! (as in, lots of gaps and holes)

  9. The plot thickens (again). So many questions, so many answers to each individual question. The “Haiti 10” have changed their stories so many times and it’s hard to keep up. It seems that now that eight are home their lips are glued together. I heard a little bit about the Oprah interview, but no media since then. I also read that one of the guys said there wasn’t any note passed to an NBC producer.

    As for the illegal travel, it’s possible that these two lame brains were going back and forth with expired visas (or no visas at all). Somehow they managed to get through. Hey, if they could get through, how hard would it be to get 200 kids through.

    Speaking about moving from country to country, where is Jorge/Yoram et al? He’d better move his not-so-Kosher butt fast. There’s a bill before the Knesset that would kill the “Law of Return” for converts to Judaism. (The Law of Return grants automatic Israeli citizenship to Jews). The Rabbinical Authority won’t let him hide behind the fake beard and Kippah..

  10. BD, keep an eye on the Liberty Legal Institute. It is sponsoring speaking tours by Jim Allen, though I think they may have been delayed by two of The Idaho 10 still being in the pokey in Haiti. Along with The Baptist Press and WorldNet Daily, they are preparing for a wholesale assault on Haiti and the Obama administration, linking the two. The evangelical Right is outraged that Haiti is deemphasizing international adoptions, and, dared jail white missionaries. I suspect LLI might even include an effort to sue the Haitian government.

    Liberty Legal Institute is the same organization that is pimping James O’Keefe’s ‘prostitute’ Hannah Giles to raise funds. It also raised money for Sarah Palin’s defense in Troopergate. The religious Right’s adventures in poor countries and the political Right’s adventures in domestic politics are two sides of the same coin, often involving some of the same people.

    A person to watch closely is Dixie Bickel, who runs an orphanage in Haiti and is opposed to having UNICEF register the children. She is becoming the face of the attack. I fear she may be a successful Laura Silsby.

  11. This whole child export thing is getting crazy. As I also posted on Baby Love Child, I’m wondering about the BRESMA & GLA Orphanages. During the Rendell’s Raid, they said they brought children who were not in process as the McMurtrie sisters refused to leave without ALL of the BRESMA orphans. However, 32 children who had been living outside of the destroyed BRESMA orphanage were transferred to GLA, into the care of Dixie Bickel. If the McMurtrie sisters took all of the children, where did these come from and why weren’t they included in Rendell’s Raid as Dixie claims they are all in process? Children seem to be appearing and disappearing at odd times and places.

  12. Coulter has been released. I think it will do Silsby a great deal of good to ponder the situation without her mini-me (or maxi-me) cheerleader at her side.

  13. Charisa Coulter just got sprung and is expected to fly back to the US as early as tonight.

    Hopefully Laura Silsby will stay at the Haiti Hilton for a while. Who can she talk to now?

    G-d, but he doesn’t seem to be listening to her.

  14. I’m going out tonight and probably won’t be able to write anything about Coulter until tomorrow. Haiti has taken over my life.She looks terrible int he pictures Guess Haiti jail cells don’t suit her too well. Silsby may have to take up converting rats.

  15. Here’s a good article from CBS.

    Here’s a quote:
    “After a court hearing Monday for Silsby, Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said he heard evidence from a police officer who said he stopped Silsby from loading a bus with children near the Dominican Republic consulate in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. That was three days before her group was arrested while trying to cross into the Dominican Republic with 33 children.

    “I found inconsistencies in some of Laura’s statements,” Saint-Vil told reporters, saying he planned to visit the Dominican consulate to resolve them.”

  16. Thanks I’m working on something now I’ve wasted the whole day with ATT, which ate all my email, archives, address book etc. I’ve spent over 4 freaking hours on hold alone (on my cellphone, no less) only to be sent to India where two different “techies” (and I use the term lightly, have no idea what I’m talking about. What is so difficult to understand. They keep telling me to “download your email.” I do. It says I have over 200 at the moment. I just can’t see them. So, I’m taking a break.

  17. Well, I finished a huge report last night, as part of my dissertation, so I have been taking a break today. Found this article from El Salvador. Evidently Jorge’s wife is going to trial. Yesterday was the preliminary hearing. I translated the article to English, but have given the link for the Spanish version. Two more articles are linked at the end, but I did not translate them. They basically say similar things.

    First article, which has picture of Ana and her daughter

    For aggravated trafficking –Puello’s wife on trial for one of three offenses

    Edmee Velásquez
    Monday, March 8th, 2010

    The wife of the Dominican Jorge Torres Puello went before the court for a preliminary hearing yesterday in the Court of First Instance of Opico for the crime of aggravated trafficking and detainment of five Nicaraguan minors. For the two other crimes that she was accused of, she has been provisionally acquitted.
    Ana Josefa Galvarina Ramírez Orellana will remain in detention at the Women’s Prison until the court of Santa Tecla sets a date for the trial. Also, Judge David Amael Moran issued new arrest warrants for Torres Puello, and stated that once Interpol report on Puello’s location, the court will initiate extradition procedures.
    Judge David Amael Moran explained that Orellana was provisionally acquitted on charges pertaining to two Dominican adults (use of persons under 18 or mentally retarded persons in pornography and trafficking) because the evidence presented by the prosecution did not support the allegations and because Orellana had not been incriminated by those two victims’ statements. On the contrary, they doubted that she was aware of the facts.
    According to the prosecution’s indictment, the two young Dominicans were detained in a residential house located in Lomas de Versailles and photographed scantily clad. The photos were used to create advertisements for prostitution on the Internet. In one of the declarations given during the hearing, one of the victims gave details of the harassment that occurred, stating Torres Puello and a Salvodoran named Ivonne Ramirez were the ones.
    Regarding the other offense for which she is charged, that of aggravated trafficking of five Nicaraguan minors, the judge ruled that the involvement of Galvarina Ramirez was not required for committing the crime, ie that it could have been done by another person.
    The Prosecutor indicated in his argument that Galvarina Ramirez fed the young women while they were living in the house. Also, she allegedly was asked to give her opinion when Puello showed her pictures of girls that would later be broadcast on the internet.
    Galvarina Ramirez’s defense lawyer, Eduardo Menendez, said the reason for her reaction was obvious: she believed her husband worked at a modeling agency. In fact, this was the hook (modeling careers) that was used by the Dominican to convince the Nicaraguans to enter the country through blind spots (rural crossings), in May 2009. The defense attorney also emphasized that the accused had no prior knowledge of the crime because she lived at Bosques de Lourdes, en Colón, a completely different place from where the acts allegedly were committed.
    Attorney Jacqueline Linares said they will appeal Galvarina Ramirez’s exoneration on the two charges related to the Dominicans. Also, they will appeal the reduction of her share in the actions related to the other charge, for which she will go to trail.

    Second article.

    Third article.

  18. I think the BRESMA orphans that were tranferred to GLA are destined for France. However, since Rendell took orphans destined for Canada and Spain, I’m still not completely clear on it.

  19. Lovely! Thanks for the update. My time was hijacked, but I’ll have something new up soon.

    She can’t possibly know what’s going on with her life back in Idaho. Not that she’s in any control in Haiti.It so sucks to be Laura.

  20. It’s amazing how there are still a few people “sticking up for Laura” on the Idaho message boards. They claim her business failure is due to the economy, etc. Yet, has Laura herself ever said anything about the employees she has left in the lurch? Has there been any public message to the employees of her company? It’s so strange, how a few still defend her and yet she has said NOTHING (at least that I have seen) about her children, her employees, anything back in Idaho.

    And then I wonder, would these defenders be willing to work with Laura, to house her, to have anything to do with her? Even though they defend her on the board, would they, in “real life”, want her to be their friend?

    And I have finally gotten to the point that I too think she does have a psychological problem. I know several of you were onto quite some time ago but I didn’t get there until now.

    I know there used to be some concern that she would be freed and then make a bunch of money off books and speaking – but I think that whatever happens, even if she is freed, she made a ruin of her life and it will take the rest of her life to fix it.

    I find it odd that the freed Christian 9 are so silent as their leader rots in jail. It’s been a quiet day – I haven’t heard anything out of Haiti yet.(Anon J)

  21. Reading over information on the Podesta Brothers and Hillary Clinton, I found a link that brought me to your page. Great info.here! Reading on some other pages that Laura and Hillary Clinton are friends. If memory serves me right, wasn’t there other charges filed because these kids were not orphaned and they still had living Parents? Looks like Hillary really knows how to pick some awful friends!

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