Fellow Baptist has faith in Laura Silsby

Boisean Carolyn Groom's friend Carla Thompson is among the 10 Baptists jailed in Haiti - and Groom was supposed to be there, too.

"I'm up nights thinking of them sleeping on the floor of the jail," Groom said Monday as she prepared to bring dinner to Corinna Lankford's family. Lankford and her daughter, Nicole, 18, of Middleton, are also among the detainees.

"They're very, very upset, especially now that they can't see her. There's no more TV footage," Groom said.

The Baptists - five from Meridian's Central Valley Baptist Church, three from Twin Falls' East Side Baptist Church, and two men from Kansas and Texas who are related to Idahoans in the group - are accused of kidnapping 33 children they were busing to the neighboring Dominican Republic after Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake.

Groom got to know group leader Laura Silsby, a fellow member of Central Valley Baptist, over the past six or seven months. Silsby led the ill-fated effort. "She felt pretty confident that she could get this orphanage going," Groom said.

The plan was for church members to take two- to four-week rotations at the orphanage, Groom said. Silsby indicated she had sold part of her business or found investors to help fund the orphanage project, but Groom's impression was that a lot of the funding was coming from Silsby's pocket.

Groom had previously gone on 10-day mission trips to Argentina and Ecuador through the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

But she canceled her Haiti plans at the last minute after her husband raised concerns. "My husband just felt that there was so much devastation there, and we didn't know enough about the government and what was going on," Groom said.

She hasn't been happy about reports suggesting most of the other detainees were turning on Silsby.

"Even if she's made some bad decisions, she's a very nice, good lady," Groom said. "I love who she is and what she stands for."

Katy Moeller: 377-6413

REPORT: GROUP TRIED TO TAKE KIDS BEFORE

Days before their arrest, the group of Baptists unsuccessfully attempted to take 40 other children from Haiti but was stopped by a Haitian police officer, according to CNN.

The report did not identify the officer or back up his claim that he stopped the group's 10 members, including Silsby, on Jan. 26 as they allegedly tried to take another group of children by bus from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic.

The officer also told CNN he ordered the children off the bus and directed Silsby to the Dominican embassy.

If correct, the officer's story could show that the other members of group knew of the difficulties of crossing the border and the need for documentation.

The group's former lawyer, Edwin Coq, has said only Silsby knew what was going on. On Saturday, a note signed by eight members of the group said they believe Silsby is lying.

Statesman staff

SILSBY FOUND ROOMS FOR $7,000 A MONTH

Silsby didn't appear to have a plan in place to house the 33 children in her charge until she had already collected them, according to a report in a Dominican Republic newspaper.

A Catholic bishop reluctantly agreed to rent Silsby 45 rooms in a former three-star hotel the Catholic Church has been using to train underprivileged children and to provide retreats for Catholic clergy, the Listin Diario reported. The Baptists were to pay for six months to house the children the Americans were bringing from Haiti.

Bishop Julio Cesar Corniel Amaro agreed to rent the rooms after being told of the urgent need to find a place to house the children, who were then headed to the Dominican Republic in a bus, the paper said.

Bethann Stewart: 377-6393

LAWYER: THEY HAD PAPERS AFTER ALL

The new lawyer for the 10 Americans said Monday he believes they had the legally required paperwork to take the 33 children out of the country after Haiti's devastating earthquake.

"I also believe, really believe - and I don't want to break the gag order from the court - that the Americans have a document, from somebody, an authorization to take the children with them," attorney Aviol Fleurant said.

It wasn't immediately clear who could have given the authorization.

The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, has said he warned Silsby before the children were bused to the border that she lacked the required papers and risked being arrested for child trafficking.

Fleurant succeeded Coq, who had represented the Americans until Friday.

The Associated Press

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO COQ?

Did Coq step down in a fee dispute? Or did he try to buy the Americans' way out of jail in an extortion scheme?

Coq says the former. Dominican Republic lawyer Jorge Puello says the latter.

A note handed by one of the U.S. detainees through jail bars to an NBC producer over the weekend said, "There is corruption, extortion."

Coq said in an interview that he had been promised $60,000 in legal fees to represent the Americans, half of which was supposed to have been paid up front. He said he complained about not receiving the money and eventually decided to resign when Puello started to disparage him.

But Puello said Coq kept increasing the amount of money he wanted and had suggested that he would use the funds to buy off judicial officials to free nine of the Americans - everyone except Silsby.

Although what occurred remains uncertain, corruption is endemic in Haiti's judiciary, say experts, with one of the problems being that judges are typically paid about $500 monthly. Camille Leblanc, a former justice minister who knows Coq, described him as an honest young lawyer but said that the $60,000 appeared large to him for such a case.

"I know lawyers who would take this case for $10,000," he said.

Another legal expert, Caves Jean, a judge who handles most of the country's kidnapping cases, said he did not consider $60,000 an unusual amount. "In cases involving just one client charged with kidnapping, lawyers often charge their clients $50,000," he said. "And this case involves 10 clients."

The New York Times

2ND LAWYER: CHARGES TO BE DROPPED

Puello said Monday that the Haitian court will drop all charges against his clients Wednesday. But he would not say where that information came from.

"The judge will rule on Wednesday on whether or not to take the case or free them, and we already have assurances that they will drop the case," Puello told The Associated Press.

Last week, he claimed nine of the 10 were about to be released, which did not happen.

The Associated Press

SILSBY: I'M INNOCENT

"I am trusting in God to reveal all truths and that we will be released and exonerated of charges," Silsby told reporters as she left a courthouse in Port-au-Prince, where investigators questioned her.

"We are just waiting for the Haitian legal process to be completed."

The rest of the group will be questioned this week.

The Associated Press

CHILDREN'S FATE REMAINS UNCLEAR

The fliers that American Baptists from New Life Children's Refuge brought to the village of Callebas promised a beautiful place for the children to live, with a soccer field, a swimming pool and a short walk to the ocean.

"We want to help Haitian children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them," read the flier that the parents received.

"We have authorization from the government to bring orphaned children, babies up to 10 years, to our orphanage in the DR. Haitian friends and relatives can come to the DR and visit the children and get updates through our Web site."

It didn't matter that the flier was in English or that few families here could afford the visas to travel to the Dominican Republic or Internet access to check New Life's Web site.

For Frisner Valmont and others here, it was a simple decision.

"All the families are victims, all the houses were destroyed, so we have no choice," said Valmont, who chose to send his 8-year-old daughter, Alentina, with the Americans.

Since the arrest of the Americans, the 33 children have been living just outside Port-au-Prince in an orphanage run by the Austrian charity SOS Children's Villages. Some of them have been visited by their families, but whether they will be reunited with their relatives is up to the country's child welfare authorities.

"The children, if you ask them, most of them say, 'I want to go back with my parents,' " said George Willeit, who works for the charity that runs the SOS Children's Villages.

The Washington Post