"Missionaries freed in Haiti back in US; 2 held on charges of child trafficking" by Maria Sudekum Fisher, Associated Press | February 19, 2010
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - American missionaries accused of child trafficking in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake returned home yesterday and urged the safe release of the two women left behind in a Port-au-Prince jail.
Related: Hustling Out of Haiti
Four of the eight freed Americans landed yesterday at Kansas City International airport to cheers and hugs. They declined to speak to reporters....
So would I.
The group’s leader, Laura Silsby, and her former nanny, Charisa Coulter, remained in jail in Haiti. Both arrived at a Port-au-Prince courthouse yesterday to be questioned by a judge about their plans to set up an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. But the judge rescheduled the appearance for today after a translator failed to show up.
Saint-Vil said he did not release Silsby, 47, or Coulter, 24, both of Boise, Idaho, because the two had visited Haiti in December and planned even before the quake to open an orphanage. The group was caught Jan. 29 trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without adoption certificates.
The arrests came as aid officials urged a halt to short-cut adoptions in the wake of the earthquake....
MSM never gets any farther than that -- or if they do, they don't pursue it.
And for those who doubt me and wish to believe the papers, well, **it happens:
"Fairfield Univ. audit finds Haiti gifts unaccounted for; Former chaplain handled funds" by Stephen Singer, Associated Press | February 19, 2010
HARTFORD - Fairfield University said it cannot account for more than $120,000 intended to go to a Haitian school where a former Connecticut man is accused of sexually abusing boys.
The money is part of nearly $776,000 raised at the Jesuit university from 1997 to 2008 for Project Pierre Toussaint. The Haitian school was cofounded and directed by Douglas Perlitz, a 1992 Fairfield graduate who was charged in September with sexual abuse....
Federal authorities in Connecticut accused Perlitz, of Eagle, Colo., of enticing children at the school in Cap-Haitien into sexual acts by promising them food, shelter, cash, electronics, and shoes. They also say he threatened to expel boys if they refused his demands.
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Related: UN Gets a Piece
Back to our regularly scheduled MSM bowel movement:"Parents of ‘orphans’ contradict missionaries" by Frank Bajak, Associated Press | February 22, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Although a US Baptist group said it was trying to rescue 33 “orphans’’ by taking them out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, all the children have close family still alive.
You know, this is OLD NEWS, so WTF, Glob? Why are you repeating yourselves?
A visit Saturday to the rubble-strewn Citron slum, where 13 of the children lived, led to their parents, all of whom said they turned their youngsters over to the missionary group voluntarily in hopes of getting them to safety, the Associated Press reported.
Similar explanations were given by parents in the mountain town of Callabas, outside Port-au-Prince, who said that desperation and blind faith led them to hand over 20 children to the Baptist group on Feb. 3. Since the arrest of the missionaries at the border Jan. 30, the parents in Citron have been worrying they may never see their children again.
Why? Were have they gone?
One mother who gave up her four children, including a 3-month-old, is in a trancelike depression, occasionally erupting into fits of hysteria....
Yeah, they love their kids just like you do, America.
Don't send them off to war based on a crock of unholy lies, but still love their kids.
Their stories contradict the missionaries’ still-jailed leader, Laura Silsby, who said the day after her arrest that the children were either orphans or came from distant relatives....
Silsby, 40, and her assistant, Charisa Coulter, 24, remain jailed as the investigating judge interviews officials at the orphanages the two visited prior to the devastating Jan. 12 quake.
The judge flew to the neighboring Dominican Republic on Saturday. The two will appear in court again Tuesday....
I'll be sure to miss the Glob coverage on Wednesday -- unless they try to hide something inside the piece.
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