Brenda Martin is home - update #2 :-)

Brenda Martin was held in Mexican jail for two years without trial. Both her former boss and another employee filed affadavits saying she was innocent (her boss is in a US prison).

It seems that in Mexico, if you don't bribe, you get whatever the judge wants. For the timeline in this case, see below:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/me...-timeline.html

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/ph...1-cbc-file.jpg
Brenda in happier days

http://media.metronews.ca/images/56/...2fc33f889.jpeg
Brenda recently. She has been under suicide watch in a Mexico prison - Puente Grande women's near Guadalajara - for several months now.

Mexico
Brenda Martin
Guilty of money laundering in Mexico
April 22, 2008
CBC News

Brenda Martin wasn't in court for the ruling by Justice Luis Nunez Sandoval. She was in the Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara where she's spent the past two years awaiting his decision. Her lawyers and court officials conveyed the bad news: Nunez had found her guilty of money laundering and fined her the equivalent of nearly $4,000 in Mexican pesos.

Brenda Martin was jailed in Mexico on money-laundering and conspiracy charges in 2006 after her former boss pleaded guilty to one of the biggest internet fraud schemes in history.

The 51-year-old woman, from Trenton, Ont., maintains her innocence, insisting that she was just a cook for fraudster Alyn Richard Waage and had believed his business was legitimate. Waage has testified Martin was unaware of his activities. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence in the United States.

Mexican prosecutors filed court documents saying that Martin's "close relationship for a fair length of time" with Waage "leads to the supposition that she had some knowledge of the criminal activities in which her friend was engaged."

Justice Nunez agreed. His ruling says she knew that illicit funds were involved in her employer's transactions. After Waage fired her in 2001, Martin received $26,000 in severance pay and invested some of it in his illegal scheme – money he returned to her once he became aware of her investment.

The nature of Mexico's justice system, which does not include oral trials and puts the onus on the accused to prove his or her innocence rather than on the prosecution to prove guilt, means Martin must wait out her legal process in prison alongside both convicted criminals and others who had not been found guilty of any crime.

Her lawyers tried to challenge her prosecution on constitutional grounds, arguing she hadn't been provided with a competent interpreter to explain the charges against her. Mexican officials said that challenge helped delay a verdict in her case.

Martin's family and friends say imprisonment has taken its toll on Martin, leaving her depressed, heavily sedated and on 24-hour suicide watch in Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara. Her conviction will just make things worse, they say.

Here's a look at the events leading up to Martin's imprisonment, and the efforts to have her released:

1998

Martin arrives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and begins working as a cook and caterer. Mexican officials say she did not have a work visa.

May 2000

She is hired to work as a chef for Alyn Richard Waage, a former resident of Edmonton, who purportedly runs an investment company.

March 2001

Waage fires Martin after an incident in which she says she called Waage's mother "a very nasty name." Martin is paid $26,000 US in severance, of which she invests roughly $10,000 US into Waage's company.

When Waage later finds out about the investment, he refunds the money.

April through September 2001

Waage is arrested for fraud following a joint investigation by U.S., Canadian and Costa Rican authorities.

They say Waage masterminded an online investment scam called Tri-West Investment Club that was responsible for defrauding 15,000 victims around the world of more than $60 million US between 1999 and September 2001. The scam was a "Ponzi scheme" in which early investors are paid with money from investors who joined later.

Mexican authorities release Waage on bail, and he flees to Costa Rica, where he is apprehended by U.S. investigators.

2002

Waage is extradited to the United States to face trial.

May 5, 2003

Waage pleads guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

2005

The men involved in the Tri-West Investment Club scheme are sentenced. Waage, who prosecutors call the "kingpin," is given 10 years in a North Carolina prison. His son, Carey, co-operates with authorities to get a reduced sentence of more than four years in prison.

Saskatchewan's Keith Nordick receives five years in prison for mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Web designer Michael Webb is sentenced to just under five years in prison.

Also in 2005, Albertan Roger Harrison publishes a fiction novel based on his unwitting involvement with Tri-West, called The Wanted and the Unwanted. The book includes characters based on many of the major players in the scam but no likeness of Martin.

Feb. 17, 2006

Mexican police come to Martin's home and tell her she needs to make one more statement against Waage. They say she will be home the next day. Instead, she is arrested and detained at the Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara, Mexico.

Authorities charge her with money laundering and criminal conspiracy.

2007

Martin's lawyers ask to have the charges against her dismissed on the grounds that her human rights were violated when she was arrested and charged. They mount a constitutional challenge, arguing that under international law Martin should have been provided with an interpreter during interviews with police.

By this time, Waage has signed an affidavit saying Martin had no knowledge of the scam. He also testified that he never told Martin anything because she drank heavily, and he felt he couldn't trust her.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague, the party's consular affairs critic, makes repeated calls for Canadian intervention in the case.

March 2008

Martin is placed on suicide watch after threatening to kill herself if she is not released within the first week of March. A psychotherapist who visited her in prison says Martin is under a "tremendous amount of stress" and "at the end of her rope."

March 10, 2008

The constitutional challenge is dismissed by a Mexican Federal Court. Mexican officials say it is the defence's legal challenge, known as an amparo and similar to an injunction, that was responsible for delaying the case by five months, because the criminal proceedings were halted pending its outcome.

The judge in Martin's case has also said that because she's a foreigner who requires translation of legal documents and testimony from out-of-country witnesses, her case is taking longer than the one year it would normally take if a Mexican had been charged with the same crimes.

March 12, 2008

Former prime minister Paul Martin, no relation, visits Martin in prison while in Mexico for conference on global governance reform. The former PM raises concern about Martin's health and the prison conditions with senior Mexican officials and prison officials following the visit.

March 14, 2008

The Mexican Embassy in Canada releases a statement saying that a review of Martin's case found that her constitutional rights had not been violated and that she had been in the country without a work visa. The embassy says that at the request of the Canadian government it has "taken all steps within its reach to ensure the case is expedited and that Brenda Martin has the best prison conditions possible."

March 17, 2008

Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls Mexican President Felipe Calderon to request assistance in Martin's case.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier meets with his Mexican counterpart, Patricia Espinosa, and asks for authorities to speed up the process for the Canadian woman.

March 19-20, 2008

Conservative MPs Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, and Rick Norlock visit Martin in prison. They also meet with senior officials at the Mexican attorney general's office, the foreign ministry and the prison to discuss Martin. Kenney says that Mexican officials assured him they would try to "fast-track" the case.

Martin reacts to the visit by calling it "a dog and pony show" and says that she is not a "political pawn."

March 24, 2008

Waage, now 61, tells the Canadian Press that Mexican officials are using Martin and another former employee — American Rebecca Roth, an assistant who has also been detained since February 2006 at the Guadalajara jail — as "ransom" for his unpaid debt. Speaking from prison in North Carolina, he says his lawyers struck a deal with Mexican authorities after his 2001 arrest, exchanging $500,000 US for his freedom. He claims both women have written to him saying they'll be released once he pays the money.

Martin's Toronto lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, said he's not aware of the bribe and has declined to comment on the ransom allegation.

March 27, 2008

A Canadian government report is leaked, detailing more than 100 government actions related to Martin since the woman's 2006 arrest. The report reveals that government officials have met with Martin several times and called her repeatedly, as well as contacting Mexican authorities in regard to her case. Martin, her family, friends and the Opposition have all previously blasted the government for inaction on the case.

April 14, 2008

Brenda Martin attends her final defence summation hearing in a Mexican court. Her lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, says he expects a decision soon and later expressed confidence she'd be freed by the judge. Her friends say that if she is found guilty, she will seek transfer to Canada rather than appeal, which would require her to stay in a Mexican prison.

April 22, 2008

Justice Luis Nunez Sandova finds Martin guilty of money laundering and sentences her to five years in prison, and fines her 35,800 Mexican pesos, about $3,700.

Pray for her mom and family...they've a long road. But thank goodness she is home.

Brenda Martin on a plane back to Canada

http://cfcn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe..._martin_080501

Martin on plane back to Canada

CTV.ca News Staff

Thu. May. 1 2008 5:23 PM ET

After spending more than two years in a Mexican prison, Brenda Martin is on a plane and heading back to Canada, CTV News has learned. She may land in Canada by 6:30 p.m. EST.

CTV's National Affairs correspondent Lisa LaFlamme says she has received a report that an inmate in Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara -- where Martin was being held -- says she has been sent back to Canada.

LaFlamme said the prisoner reportedly phoned Martin's friend and advocate Deb Tielman and said, "She's gone! She's gone! You must be very happy."

Government officials have not confirmed that the Canadian who has been convicted in Mexico in connection with an Internet fraud scheme is on her way home.

But LaFlamme said that is likely because of privacy concerns. But "we have it from opposition sources that this is confirmed," LaFlamme said.

LaFlamme said the prisoner transfer arranged by Mexican and Canadian authorities will probably send Martin to the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont. Her plane may land directly at Waterloo International Airport.

Once Martin is back in Canada, Canadian parole rules apply. But her release will be up to the National Parole Board, an official told CTV last month.

In Canada, a federal prisoner is eligible to apply for day parole after serving one-sixth of her sentence and full parole after serving one-third.

"I think her prison stay will be very short," Tielman told CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live, adding that she believes the government wants to assess her friend's physical and mental state. Mexican prison officials had kept Martin on a suicide watch for the latter part of her stay in the Mexican prison.

Last month, a Mexican judge found Martin guilty of involvement with her former boss' Internet fraud scheme.

He sentenced the 51-year-old native of Trenton, Ont., to a minimum of five years in jail and fined her about $3,500. The federal government loaned Martin the money to pay the fine.

She had spent two years in a Mexican prison before hearing her verdict.

LaFlamme said the Mexican officials appear to have wanted Martin out of their country as much as she wanted to get out.

"This woman inside that prison was making so much noise on the outside that all this Canadian media had converged on the prison," LaFlamme said on Mike Duffy Live.

The media campaign brought Martin's case to the attention of high level officials in the government, including two cabinet ministers and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Government officials maintained that they could not influence another country's justice system, but they did work to have Martin returned to Canada based on treaties between Ottawa and Mexico.

Jason Kenney, Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism, made two visits to Mexico in an effort to negotiate Martin's return to Canada.

"She's probably immediately eligible to apply for parole," Kenney told CTV's Canada AM during his second trip last week.