Breaking News: Baptist missionaries charged with kidnapping
It comes as no surprise anymore that the baptist independent travellers (I've decided not to call them missionaries anymore in deference to actual missionaries) who were detained at the Dominican border were charged today with kidnapping.
As I blogged yesterday, there's plenty of evidence that the head of the group, Laura Silsby, had some pretty suspicious plans for a resort/orphanage with seaside villas for adopting parents to stay in, when they weren't hanging out at the beachside orphanage/café.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have more detailed investigative stories into the plan Silsby was putting into place well before the earthquake.
But things were already starting to look bad for Silsby yesterday when the Dominican Consul General, Carlos Castillo, revealed that he had spoken to Silsby before she arrived at the border, making it clear that she would be arrested for child trafficking if she went through with her plan. When Silsby arrived at the border anyways, brandishing Castillo's card, trying to claim he had given them permission to cross, her fate was pretty much sealed.
On the bright side, according to the Idaho Statesman, Silsby will now be able to avoid court appearances she was scheduled for in February and March for charges relating to fraud and unpaid wages. And even if she hadn't been charged where would she go? Her home had been foreclosed on the month before she left.
Thank God for the Haitian government, who may be coming through with a secure place for her to stay for a maximum period of 15 years.
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Comments
I've got to get more information about this. It's all so crazy.
Hah! Even before I heard this, I knew there was something badly off about those people. The main indicator I was going off of was that every time I saw this story being discussed on the news, and even when I just thought about it, I wanted to vomit. My gut knows what it knows....
The idea that they would be better off in the hands of a confidence woman with a long trail of debt and failure is nothing short of racism.
Every time I screw up, I can cheer myself with the thought "at least I'm not Bernie Madoff." Now I can reassure myself that I'm not Laura Silsby, either.
If a culture is destructive to those living in it then racism is deserved. If you refuse to admit to the problem you'll never be able to change it.
My stomach was in knots about this. Thank you Julie.
Also, it should be noted Baptist does not denote any particular denomination. There are dozens of Baptist denominations and thousands of independent churches and organizations with Baptist in their name. Silsby is a member of a Southern Baptist church, but her ministry New Life Children's Refuge is independent of that denomination so they are really not Baptist missionaries sent by the Southern Baptist Church.
But if you read Akopsa's most recent blog, I don't think it's at all too early to suspect this woman of fraud. She may be even frauding herself. But someone who bails on a foreclosure by coming up with a table napkin plan to start an orphanage is not someone who should be running an orphanage. And there are more and more reports to confirm that she lied to the parents of these children because she saw this crisis as a opportunity to fill up her faux orphanage as soon as possible.
Haiti has been vigilant from the beginning of this crisis about quick fix adoptions. I know this because I live in Montreal where so many orphans are adopted, because of our francophone community. My son's best friend was adopted from Haiti when he was a year old by wonderful parents.
The pressure has been on both the Haitian and The Quebec government to fast track adoptions and they haven't caved. Haiti is hyperaware of people like Silby. The country is crawling with people like her, earthquake or not. Legitimate groups don't need to be afraid, they just need to be patient.
Uganda's government is working to pass a law that permits execution for the crime of being homosexual and imprisonment for not telling the government that someone you know is gay, and our national politicians are connected to it despite their denouncements and denials. We have hidden information regarding priests in the Catholic church who for decades, centuries, and perhaps even millenia prey on children while taking no action to stop it. So-called Christians are involved in sex slave trafficking and the selling of children for "adoption," and using that very same argument that was employed here: "They are better off now. We are helping them escape their impoverished circumstances and bringing them to the land of Christ and opportunity."
I am not a Christian and do not understand why so many operate under this bizarre, irrational delusion, but the way we accept people's goodness the minute they throw a dead fish on their bumpers without challenge is dangerous.
I want to believe in religious freedom--both freedom from religion and freedom of religion--but this does not bode well for our country or faith itself. I don't know the answer, but we haven't found it yet.
Thanks for exposing this, Juliet. We are indebted to you.
This woman's major crime was not paying off the authorities. She thought with the country in chaos, she wouldn't have to.
Haiti is THE worst country on earth for child slavery and trafficking. An undercover team reporting to the U.N. were offered a child for $50 on the streets of Port au Prince, including all paper work—just last year. This issue is way deeper than a few benighted religious nuts trying to get away with something for free.
I wish all Haitian children were truly protected by their government. But since that didn't happen before the earthquake, what precisely will happen now? This case just might backfire on the government and force them to truly protect their children. But once the dust settles, I'm sure trafficking will go back to the usual.
You don't know the full story. Haiti is as corrupt a country as there is, before or after the earthquake. To dismiss that very real possibility suggests your own set of blinders and unwillingness to get to the bottom of the story.
Baptists, indeed. Would you have been as outraged if they were atheists?
There's an interesting couple of lines in the NYT article: "The Haitian capital lost courthouses, judges, lawyers and its main prison in the earthquake, straining the judiciary along with everything else. Prosecutors said this was the first criminal case to receive a hearing in Port-au-Prince since the natural disaster."
So this is "the first criminal case" . . . .
So let me see if I understand this. After the earthquake there is looting by machete-wielding gangs. But apparently these guys aren't worth bothering with. There's rape too. Forget about it, not important enough to prosecute.
"Haiti's police chief says bandits are "running wild" and preying on vulnerable earthquake survivors, even raping women in makeshift camps set up after the disaster."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/29/2805073.htm
No, the real threat in Haiti is American Baptists.
Interestingly, in 2006 the organization Transparency International ranked Haiti as the most corrupt country in the world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6120522.stm
So for now I'm going to go with "innocent until proven guilty' -- if it's even possible to get a fair trial down there.
Of course it's only one case but I'd credit the BBC with enough journalistic integrity to not feature just a single case if they didn't have reason to believe that there were more. And I do agree that the missionaries should face criminal charges regardless of what their motives may have been.
How do you know it's not the first criminal case because the Haitians have given special preference to the Baptist kidnapper and left the machete-wielding looters to rot in pre-trial detention?
Maybe because of US pressure, maybe because there was a greater possibility that the Baptists might be found innocent than the machete-wielding looters caught red-handed.
Yeah, there are some serious issues in Haiti. But Silsby didn't spend the time to identify or address them.
I think you need to buff up your reading comprehension skills. My comment was aimed at a corrupt country. Other commenters got it.
Laura Silsby went to a desperate village, and took 33 children. At least one parent (the one interviewed for the NYT) is on record saying that she believed her 8 year old child was being offered a place in a nice school where she would be able to visit.
These parents gave these children to Silsby based on a photoshoped brochure of an orphanage that only exists on paper. The NYT went to the town where the supposed orphanage exists and were told by the mayor that there had been plans, but that they fell through.
Then, according the the interview I linked to on CNN, Silsby went to the Dominican consul and was told in no uncertain terms that they couldn't help her, and that if she tried to take the children across the border she would be arrested.
She went anyways, with the consul's card, and lied to the border officials. When they called him, he told them she was lying.
Regardless of whether the parents willingly gave the children away, of whether or not she tried to bribe officials, and totally irregardless of her religion....if you pulled that kind of stunt in either your country, or mine (Canada) you would charged for fraud and kidnapping.
So if you want to pummel me with more irrelevant comments about the corruption of the Haitian government, the martyrdom of Baptists, or some supposed agenda the Haitian government has because they are using there very limited resources to try someone who committed an obviously illegal activity in front of their own officials...I suggest you start your own post. Because I am not going to waste my time on your personal soap box.
If you want to lecture me about my obligation to keep an open mind, please show me some evidence that you are acquainted with the facts of this case, beyond what you saw on the television news two days ago.
Ok, let me put it this way. There is a difference between being charged with a crime and being guilty of a crime. I don't know how it works in Haiti, but up here there are very specific elements of a crime that MUST be established in order to prove guilt. If all of those elements are not present, then the person is not guilty of that crime.
In your post, you say nothing about the specific elements of the crime of kidnapping in Haiti -- about what specifically must be proved in order to establish guilt. You mention a number of facts -- inasmuch as they may be facts -- but don't show how they constitute the crime of kidnapping in Haiti.
At this point I have no idea if these people are guilty of kidnapping, human trafficking, smuggling, fraud, custodial interference, or all or none of those.
And so far the facts of the case have not been established. This is why there are trials, evidence, defense and prosecution, testimony under oath, and so on.
In the absence of all of these things, you seem willing to put Silsby in the slammer for 15 years. Well, it may turn out that way. Or it may not. It's not really a matter of keeping an open mind, but of not prejudging the case until the legal process has a chance to establish guilt or innocence, inasmuch as that may be possible down there.
Doesn't that strike you as very odd? What would you think if you were charged with a crime, and then your attorney announced to the world that "Juliet knows what she did was wrong."
With a defense attorney like that there's no need for a prosecutor.
I do not understand why you think there's any confusion about this being kidnapping. Children are not puppies. Name me a country where a parent is allowed to hand a child over to a stranger, and that stranger is allowed to leave the country with a child who has no documentation.
Add to this that soon after the Earthquake Haiti passed a clear moratorium on all foreign adoption to avoid exactly these situations. Anyone who wants to help Haitian children right now has to do that within Haiti, unless they have express permission from the Prime Minister to take a child out of the country.
There are now SEVERAL independent sources, including the Dominican Consul and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who say they they told Silsby in no uncertain terms that what she was doing was illegal.
There is also now a police officer in custody who she bribed.
As for the lawyer. He is/was the lawyer for all ten defendants. Now he's the lawyer for 9 defendants. I don't think there's anything suspicious about a lawyer who dumps the clearly guilty defendant to continue representing the possibly innocent 9 defendants. Happens all the time.
You want to keep an open mind, go ahead. But there's open mindedness and there's stubborn minded naiveté.
This is profiteering off of a terrible tragedy and exploiting a situation that is confusing and chaotic as hell at the moment. It is not for just anyone with money and a business plan to decide where children will be better off.
Great job on this, Juliet.
Just read yesterday's post which was excellent, as well. Highly recommend it to others reading this today.
I don't know the elements of the crime of kidnapping in Haiti, the legal definitions, or the case law there. Therefore it's impossible for me to know if it is kidnapping, some other crime, or not a crime at all.
Here in the U.S. the laws related to kidnapping and other similar crimes vary from state to state. Kidnapping often must involve the use of force or coercion, but that's not necessarily one of the elements of child abduction.
From what I've read a number of the children in question have one or more living parents who gave consent, something that is not typical of kidnapping cases. Parents sending children to live in orphanages is not uncommon in Haiti. Apparently the parents were misled concerning the accommodations in the Dominican Republic, but I don't know to what extent that might constitute an element of the crime of kidnapping.
If the missionaries had misled the parents about the orphanage, but taken the children to another location in Haiti, would that constitute kidnapping? If they had been truthful about the orphanage in the Dominican Republic would that have constituted kidnapping? I have no idea.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you on this. It's just that so far I have not heard any legal analysis from someone who knows the Haitian criminal code. In the absence of that, everything else is just speculation.
Juliet: "As for the lawyer. He is/was the lawyer for all ten defendants. Now he's the lawyer for 9 defendants. I don't think there's anything suspicious about a lawyer who dumps the clearly guilty defendant to continue representing the possibly innocent 9 defendants. Happens all the time."
Here in the U.S. conversations between attorneys and their clients are confidential. Just because an attorney withdraws from a case doesn't mean that he can breach client-attorney confidentiality or pronounce his former client guilty. Maybe things are different in Haiti.
In the US, if you take 20 kids, that's 20 counts of kidnapping. If ten parents subsequently say it wasn't a kidnapping, it becomes 10 counts of kidnapping. If 19 parents recant, you have one count of kidnapping. But you still have a count of kidnapping.
New Buddha: Haiti's laws were derived from the French, possibly with a lot of American influence. I'd imagine that a major crime, like trafficking (which I imagine is defined as kidnapping and trying to take across a border illegally) has a minimum sentence.
I'd also expect that when writing the law for kidnapping and trafficking children, no one imagined the possibility of some misguided, self-righteous, lunatic do-gooder having nothing but good intentions and being according to some, worthy of a shorter sentence. Parents of kids who didn't know their children were being taken to the US to be adopted as orphans might feel she deserves a lot longer than 15 years.
Silsby ignored the law, feeling she had no need to follow Haitian or Dominican law. Her actions would have been illegal under US law, so this is not like chewing gum in Singapore. She got caught. She faces trial and a long jail sentence. That is the result of the choices she made.
Ultimately, it is a result of her conviction that as a white American, she is above Haitian law. That as a white American her actions should not be questioned. That as a white American, if she says she meant well, she should be believed -- even thanked.
That is an attitude that I suspect will infuriate any Haitian and even more so Haitians who are active in trying to bring better Gov't and the rule of law to their country.
Therefore, I hope the US doesn't waste much energy or diplomatic capital reinforcing Silsby's beliefs and trying to rescue her from the consequences of her actions.
I've been downwind of a Haitian prison. So, if the US can spring Silsby after a few months, she'll have learned a lesson she will never forget. But if they can't get her released without negative consequences, let her suffer the consequences of her actions.
When you knowingly try and take a child out of the country without documentation, it doesn't matter what your intentions are, the state assumes you are kidnapping. And what does she have to back up her intentions? A brochure about an orphanage that doesn't exist. In the best case scenario she has a few parents who say they were willing to give her their children to go to an orphanage. BUT THERE'S NO ORPHANAGE.
I know you are not trying to pick a fight. But it does seem to me that you are pummeling me with irrelevancies, to protect your original idea that this situation has something to do with Haitian corruption or, as you put it, their worse than "crack dealer" standards of integrity.
But it's crystal clear that she knowingly broke the law.
Again, I don't know the specifics of the law in Haiti. But just as an example, here's the law on kidnapping in the state where I live:
1) You move the person from one place to another, or conceal him where he is not likely to be found
a) without his consent and
b) with the intention of substantially interfering with his personal liberty.
That is kidnapping in the second degree. Kidnapping in the first degree involves all the above, plus holding the person for ransom, or with the purpose of terrorizing him, or to physically injure him, or to commit a sexual crime.
Applying that to the situation in Haiti, I think it is clear that it does not involved first-degree kidnapping. As far as second degree kidnapping, I think the missionaries would argue that they didn't take the children with the purpose of interfering with their personal liberty. They also, as I understand it, took the children with the consent of the parents or those who had custody of them.
Where the missionaries would get into trouble would be with the issue of "consent." In not being truthful about the existence of the orphanage in the Dominican Republic, one could argue that the parents' consent was fraudulently obtained. The missionaries could argue that the orphanage was planned, they were in the process of raising funds for it, and that the children would have been provided humane accommodations until then. In other words, the children weren't going to be used as slave labor, or something like that.
Again, I don't know the law in Haiti. But I think these are the kinds of issues that would be relevant.
I keep coming back to point that in order to be guilty of a crime, one must be guilty of all the elements of the crime. How that might play out in Haiti I don't know. I think that what the missionaries did is quite different from what we normally would consider to be kidnapping -- e.g., abducting children at gunpoint, driving them across the border, and putting them to work in a silver mine.
That said, I think what the missionaries did was monumentally dumb. I just don't think that they should each spend 495 years in prison for it (15 years X 33 children).
It doesnt' matter what the law of your state is. That was the transparent law of Haiti, and she transparently broke the law.
My understanding of US law is that stated good intention on the part of the accused doesn't count for much. Further, kidnapping children without being a relative or having legal custody of them nets you a minimum sentence of 20 years in the US.
My reading of the Federal kidnapping law (and I admit I'm not a lawyer) is that it includes holding for ransom or otherwise. In this case, it's otherwise.
Further, you could argue that Silsby planned to profit from these kids. She had orphanage plans and, as far as I can tell, no money to build it. Help earthquake victims, House these homeless orphans! is a more powerful and urgent appeal than let's build an orphanage. So, it is not clear that her intentions were entirely unselfish.
Okay, let's get to custody. The law says a non-family member needs legal custody in the US. You might argue that in post earthquake Haiti that was hard to obtain. But, it is clear the Silsby had access to plenty of gov't officials. She got a meeting with the Dominican consul. She couldn't get a meeting with any Haitian official? Is there evidence she tried.
The point of requiring legal custody is to prevent parents making rushed decisions in the midst of a crisis from not asking the proper questions, not checking to see if the school they were sending their kids to actually existed. Had Silsby gone through legal channels, the fact that her orphanage and school was a pipe dream should have become apparent.
If she had credible arrangements for the children, the parents could have evaluated them. For example, did she have teachers who spoke Creole, the only language spoken by 90% of Haitians? Where was she going to house the children? How easy would it be for the parents to visit?
You may view Silsby as a tragedy, but she knew what she was doing was illegal. Ultimately her fate is the result of the decisions she made.
"..the extraordinary account of Richard Pickett, a web designer from Kentucky , and his wife Malinda certainly raises questions about Mrs Silsby's intentions.
The Picketts were in the final stages of adopting three Haitian children when, with the paperwork approved, the quake struck. Twelve days later, Mr Pickett travelled to Haiti to collect the children. While he was away, his wife received three calls from Mrs Silsby, of whom the couple had no prior knowledge, offering to pick up the children herself when she arrived in Haiti.
"My wife was very clear with each time that under absolutely no circumstances was she to try and do that," Mr Pickett told The Sunday Telegraph. "In fact, I was already with the kids in a refugee centre by then. But we have since heard from the orphanage that she turned up, claiming to be our friend and asking for the children."
He believes Mrs Silsby had obtained their name from an agency involved in adoptions from Haiti. And orphanage workers have said that she "cried in frustration" when she was rebuffed by her requests for children from other establishments. It was then, it appears, that she lead the group to the village where parents say they were encouraged to hand over the children. "
Juliet quotes: "My wife was very clear with each time that under absolutely no circumstances was she to try and do that," Mr Pickett told The Sunday Telegraph. "In fact, I was already with the kids in a refugee centre by then. But we have since heard from the orphanage that she turned up, claiming to be our friend and asking for the children."
Clearly there was a lot of strange stuff going on. When I look at the whole situation it seems to me that there is a relatively weaker case for kidnapping and a relatively stronger case for fraud. There may be other lesser offenses related to paperwork and documentation.
So the question in my mind is whether the fraud rises to a level such that the parents or custodians of the children could not have given "consent." If it does, then at that point presumably that would constitute one of the elements of kidnapping.
But I'm not a lawyer. So it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in Haiti. My guess is that nine of the ten will be released, and possibly all ten, if only for political reasons. Of all the strange stuff I've read about, it always seems to involve Silsby, not the other nine.
And Mishima, reading your comment again. I don't see how you can have case for fraud and not kidnapping, when it comes to children you can't get consent to adoption based on a lie. As for "minor charges" relating to paperwork. This would be true if she had no knowledge that paperwork was needed. But there are more and more people everyday who claim they told her directly that she needed documentation (see above video.) Silsby was forced by the U.S. to hand over the passports of her own children before she left the country. So there's no way she didn't know the legal importance of documents when traveling with children.
I'm sorry, but there are no minor charges when it comes to deliberately trying to take children that are not your own into another country. If it were illegal property it would be smuggling. It's children, so it's kidnapping.
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