[salomal-qask]

I love these people...

10 Americans in Haiti Are Charged With Abduction

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

By MARC LACEY
Published: February 4, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans detained after trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border last week were charged Thursday with abduction and criminal association, according to prosecutors.

After the hearing, the Americans were led from the capital city’s white central courthouse and back to jail. They did not speak to the crush of reporters or photographers massed outside the building to cover the case.

Before the hearing, Laura Silsby, who had helped organize the group’s mission to Haiti, sounded a hopeful note as she waited to be taken into court, saying, “We’re just trusting God for a positive outcome.”

Edwin Coq, a lawyer for the Baptists, had said that 9 of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but that, in an apparent reference to Ms. Silsby, “if the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.”

“I’m trying to get them all free but I don’t yet know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Coq said in an interview at his earthquake-damaged law offices in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

The Americans were arrested on Friday as they tried to take 33 Haitian children to what they had said was an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. A Web site for the orphanage said that children there would stay in a “loving Christian home-like environment” and be eligible for adoption.

The Americans, their lawyers and members of their churches have said they are innocent of any wrongdoing, and said the case was a huge misunderstanding. In an interview earlier this week, Ms. Silsby said the group had come to Haiti to rescue children orphaned by the earthquake, and that “our hearts were in the right place.”

But several of the 33 children had at least one living parent, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and said the children would be able to return to Haiti to visit their families.

Some Haitian leaders have called the Americans kidnappers, but until Thursday, Haitian judicial officials had left open the possibility that the group could be returned to the United States for possible trial, sparing Haiti’s crippled justice system a high-profile criminal prosecution fraught with diplomatic and political land mines.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/wo...ef=global-home

[Jxmwzgpv]

This is not going to look good in Haitian court: desperate for money... comes to Haiti.... caught trying to transport children accross the border...

Woman Detained in Haiti Also Due in Idaho Court
By ROBERT MACKEY

Laura Silsby, who led a Baptist group on a mission that resulted in all 10 members of her team being charged with kidnapping on Thursday by Haitian authorities, also faces legal troubles back home in Boise, Idaho, in the form of two lawsuits.

According to a report in her hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, Ms. Silsby, the founder and C.E.O. of PersonalShopper.com, is being sued by a former employee for unpaid wages and by a law firm for unpaid fees. The Statesman reports that she is due in court next Wednesday in connection with the suit by her former marketing director — a jury trial in that case is scheduled to start on Feb. 22 — and again in March in a suit filed by a local law firm.

The Boise newspaper says that the suit filed by her former employee charges that Ms. Silsby, who was named eWomenNetwork’s “International Businesswoman of the Year” in 2006, “repeatedly told plaintiff that she had investors ‘committed,’ that the money was being ‘wired,’ and that investors were going to be providing funds,” so that she could met her payroll obligations.

On Thursday the Idaho Department of Labor confirmed to The Lede that 14 claims for nonpayment of wages were filed against Personal Shopper Inc. in 2008 and 2009.

The Idaho newspaper also notes that Ms. Silsby has been sued four other times in the past three years by businesses seeking payment.

As The Lede noted on Wednesday, news organizations, including The New York Times, CNN and The Associated Press, have reported that many of the children with the Americans were not orphans, as Ms. Silsby had initially claimed.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...n-idaho-court/

---

I had to laugh... the Times articles show these photos with the description:

"Laura Silsby, center, who led a Baptist group to Haiti, smiled on Thursday despite having just learned that she and her nine team members would be charged with kidnapping."





Uh... girls.... a word of advice: don't smile for the camera when you're in a foriegn country and have just been charged with kidnapping (or murdering your roommate).

Just don't.


---

[lorrieholdridge]

Yeah, because Haiti and Italy are similar in so many ways. Let's beat that old horse again, why don't we.

Anyway, I'm sure Silsby believes Jesus is going to personally handle her case.

[zilsolley3]

guilty as charged...should throw away the key..!boy, Americans ARE really arrogant and just think they can do as they please all over the world. No wonder we are being hunted anywhere we go!

[jisee]

^
Yeah, all of us want to go to Haiti and kidnap people.

Give it a rest. You sound ridiculous.

[citicroego]

maybe you should ask the authorities in Haiti if i do. I bet THEY disagree with you.maybe you need to ask those children that were being 'kidnapped' how i sound.one question...are YOU american? never mind...i can guess.

[Shootohoist]

^
You think the authorities in Haiti think all Americans want to kidnap Haitians?

one question...are YOU american? Yes, I am. So what?

[pushokalex1]

but a majority and not ONLY in haihi. MOST of the WORLD think americans are ARROGANT. maybe you missed something...at conception!

[Cibirrigmavog]

but a majority and not ONLY in haihi.

Got a poll?

MOST of the WORLD think americans are ARROGANT. If I expressed the same sort of stereotyping toward Native Americans that you exhibit, you'd call me a racist.

maybe you missed something...at conception! A sure signal that the intellectual tank is empty is the resort to personal insults.

[Tjfyojlg]

you are...thats your opinion and I am for freedom enough to allow you to express it.Personally I guess I would rather KNOW you dont like Natives than be forced to live with you and make you hide your true feelings.the censorship issue...I dont agree with it at all.the question here is...are americans a race now?
this is really apples and oranges. americans are not a race. I do HATE that title and what it has come to represent.a proper comparison for you is if you said you hate africans...yes, your a nationalist and only like americans.
does any of this make sense because now your getting ME lost!
I dont discriminate...i hate black americans (because of the buffalo soldiers) just as much as white americans(WASPS).the title I challenge is american...therefore try to never capitalize it in my posts.
nobody here has to agree with my posts but you should try to learn how others view your society.quit trying to keep them quiet.I already know there are 100s of people that hate me for race,political view...but that is ONE great thing about this country...freedom of speech.i protect that at all costs.
if you dont stand for something...youll never stand for nothing!And yes...the insults were uncalled for.my apology.

[soyclocky]

^
I didn't say I hated anybody. And the point is not whether American is a race. It's that your attitude toward INDIVIDUAL Americans is typical of racism.

I dont discriminate.. Yes you do.

discrimination: noun treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class,or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

[Theateetetuig]

that says for instance that an employer cannot discriminate?or is the criteria specific? race.,sex,etc.does it anywhere say you must hire regardless of NATIONALITY? NO.. it doesnt.a bias based on nationality is NOT considered discrimination at all. no more than a felon cannot claim discrimination because he is a felon and refused a position solely because of his criminal record. i am an employer and very familiar with discrimination and its meaning and yes...have been challenged on it.

[KLIMOV25gyi]

^
This is what happens when you have you hands on cow tits all day.

[Edwardthe_third]

Moo?