She is already facing kidnapping and criminal-association charges stemming from the New Lifers’ January 29th attempted child export trip that ended in ten members of the team being arrested. (At least seven other team members were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of the arrests.)

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil has added a new charge of “organization of irregular trips.”

As explained in this article, Haiti judge: New charge for US missionary leader:

Saint-Vil has added the new charge of “organization of irregular trips,” from a 1980 law restricting travel out of Haiti that was signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The judge said Friday he has until early May to decide whether to release Silsby or order a trial.

The new charge stems from the trip the 10 missionary scavengers made 3 days before, on January 26th.

Assumedly this would pertain to the bus trip with 40 kids that a Haitian police officer put a stop to, telling them what they were doing was illegal, and that they could not go about it that way before offering to help them.

Importantly ten missionaries were on the bus at the time the officer stopped them and told them their child export attempt was illegal.

Whether or not those were the same ten who were then arrested three days later, or merely a subset of that group filled out by others who were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of final fateful trip and arrests is unknown. But in light of the incident with the police officer on the 26th, to later claim they were unaware they didn’t have the appropriate paperwork certainly rings hollow.

I wrote about that trip on February 9th, in my post Thwarted by a police officer in an earlier attempt 3 days before their arrests to export 40 *Other* kids- more on Silsby and the Scavengers. The post and my comments contain links to the initial reporting I was able to find on that previous child procurement trip the New Lifers’ made in to Haiti.

This is why I have repeatedly referred to the child victims of the New Lifers’ child trafficking attempts as at least “73″ not merely the 33 from the attempted trip on the 29th.

To date we know of at least two attempts by the New Lifers at child trafficking. It is unclear as to whether or not there were any other additional or previous attempts.

What we can piece together by way of a very bare bones sketch with just a few details added begins to look like this:

• January 12 was the earthquake
• January 22, we have this report telling the story of the children on the New Lifers’ final bus trip and their families from Calebasse (a rare bit of useful reporting from the otherwise tabloid rag, the Daily Mail UK.) The piece includes a number of details pertaining to the New Lifers trip to Calebasse marketing their “orphanage” and attempting to collect kids:

…”ten days later when the U.S. Baptists arrived at Calebasse and began knocking on doors. They handed out flyers saying they wanted to ‘help children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them’. The flyers said, inaccurately, that the group had the Haitian government’s permission to take 100 children abroad to the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti.”

• January 26th, was the foiled attempt to move the busload of 40 kids out of Haiti from which, assumedly the latest charge stems
• January 29th, (a week after marketing in Calebasse) the final attempt to take the Calebasse kids out of Haiti, which eventually results in the arrests of the ten missionary scavengers.

Clearly the New Lifers were in Haiti as early as the 22nd, the question remains whether they only attempted two trips, or whether there were other trips or attempts in that week that have yet to come to light.

The article pertaining to the new charge describes the trip on the 26th as a:

newly discovered, alleged attempt

Despite the fact that the articles I found at the time mentioned the officer who stopped their bus on the 26th and got the 40 children out MAY HAVE already been questioned by the court in relation to the incident (although it is unclear, the two articles I was able to find here and here, may be speaking of separate officers. If so, the New Lifers would have had multiple Haitian officers trying to help them export the kids. As I have been trying to piece this together from secondary sources, I am unfortunately unable to clarify that point.)

Perhaps by “newly discovered” they mean by Judge Saint-Vil, as the CNN piece refers to:

The Americans, who were interviewed Wednesday by Judge Isai Jean Louis, are to appear Thursday before the attorney general, who is handling the case, lawyer Edwin Coq said.

(Coq is no longer representing the missionaries, it is unclear the extent to which information did or did not travel between the two Judges as the case moved along.)

All we can hope is that a case is being carefully constructed and that the additional jail time will provide additional time for further details to come to light and some clarifications.

Members of the media watch a Florida FBI videotaped interview from March 8, 2010, of Jackie Zudis, an alleged victim of George England, as she describes living and being abused by England for over 20 years, Thursday, March 11, 2010, in Santa Ana, Calif. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Ken Steinhardt)

George England:

A convicted California child molester who was set to be released from prison was charged today in Florida with using a girl he bought in Vietnam as a sex slave.

The U.S. attorney’s office in West Palm Beach, Fla., charged George England, 65, with transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. He is also charged with having child pornography on his computer.

The girl, Jackie Zudis, never underwent a formal adoption process, but was made to live out the role of being England’s “adopted daughter” throughout the period he allegedly sexually abused her.

Prosecutors said he purchased a girl from her mother in Vietnam in 1972, pretended she was his adopted daughter and molested her for years starting when she was 5. They lived in California in the late 1970s before eventually moving to Florida.

While he was sentenced to four consecutive terms of one year to life behind bars, he was up to the edge of being released after a mere 3 years.

In the 1977 case, England was granted bail after being convicted of molesting the three girls. He was supposed to settle his affairs before going to prison. Instead, he fled and was a fugitive for nearly three decades before being arrested in Florida for passport fraud then returned to California in 2006.

He was sentenced that year to four consecutive terms of one year to life in prison. Because the crimes fell under the laws of the 1970s, England was eligible for parole after serving three years.

The district attorney’s office said England and girl from Vietnam lived in a motor home where England urged her to invite girls from school or the neighborhood.

While on bail, England coached and threatened the girl to deny any sexual conduct with him, authorities said.

After the first 8 years of abuse, she found herself pregnant by England, just as she would have been hitting puberty.

Prosecutors said the girl became pregnant from the sexual assaults at least eight times, starting at age 13. That time she had a baby that was given up for adoption. Other pregnancies were aborted.

The sexual assaults ended at age 16 when the girl threatened suicide, and at 21 she got married and moved away, according to the district attorney’s office. She has said she didn’t leave earlier because she had nowhere to go.

This article, Prosecutors: Man kept girl as sex slave for more than a decade, from the Miami Herald contains more details.

For one thing, we learn that initial pregnancy only came to full term due to England discovering it too far along, after birth, the baby boy was placed for adoption.

(Yup, some adopted fellow out there somewhere has one heck of a shock in store for him, if anyone ever bothers allowing him access to the truth about his origins, that is.)

It would certainly be interesting to see the original birth certificate on that one, does she list a “father’s” name?

As she was a minor at the time, would England have signed the paperwork?

He sexually assaulted three of her young friends, authories said.

He skipped out of sentencing and lived for years in South Florida using the fake name of a dead baby.

And he kept raping the girl, as often as five times a week, impregnating her more than a half dozen times, prosecutors said.

Clearly the mere three years served was seen by at least some as completely inappropriate:

On Thursday, a Southern California prosecutor called a news conference to express his disgust that England, the beneficiary of more lenient 1970s sentencing standards, was about to walk out of prison.

But an aide pulled Orange County, Calif., District Attorney Tony Rackauckas aside to say that wasn’t going to happen.

California prosecutors said the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were filing an arrest warrant Thursday in Palm Beach County for crimes England allegedly committed against Jackie Zudis in Florida.

The article also hints that they traveled cross country, so the possibility of other details from other states along the way are perhaps a possibility:

England never was charged because Zudis didn’t report him until she was an adult, long after California’s statute of limitations had expired.

She has waived her right to anonymity under California privacy laws to protect sexual assault victims “to publicize the crimes committed against her by England and the danger he poses to society,” the District Attorney’s Office said.

On Oct. 21, 1977, England was convicted in California of three felony counts of child molestation.

Three of Zudis’ young friends said England had sexually assaulted them when they spent the night at his house after Zudis had fallen asleep.

England persuaded a judge to let him remain free to settle his affairs before sentencing. He then removed Zudis from protective custody and fled, prosecutors said.

Over the next year, the California authorities said, England moved with Zudis throughout the United States, finally settling in Florida.

He obtained a birth certificate, social security number, driver’s license, and passport under the name of Stephen Arthur Seagoe, a child born a year after him but who died at 11 months in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Records show addresses for him in Palm Beach Gardens in 1988 and in Riviera Beach dating back to 1993, as well as in Key West and Fort Lauderdale.

But, naturally, there’s even more to story still, it turns out he may be a citizen of another country:

“I have been dealing with the consequences of this monster’s lewd acts for over 30 years,” one victim wrote California prison officials last year. “[He] has not even acknowledged the wrongfulness of his victimization.”

Rackauckas said federal officials had been considering deporting England to Canada, where he claims to be a citizen, before learning of the Florida charges.

“This man spent a lifetime using young girls for his own perverse sexual gratification and never showing any remorse for the emotional and psychological baggage he left his victims to carry. I am sickened that my Office has been denied legal recourse to keep this child molester locked up away from children,” Rackauckas said in a statement.

“Had he been convicted under the law today, England would be spending the rest of his life in prison. That’s where he belongs, not on our streets and in our neighborhoods.”

Adoption secrecy may have played a role in how easy it was for England to pass Zudis off as his “adopted daughter.”

As his procurement of her took place in Vietnam in 1972, one has to ask, was he there as a soldier, and if so on which country’s behalf?

How did he manage to transport her to the United States?

Did he acknowledge her Vietnamese origins, (and to what extent was she able to) and if so, what was that like for her, a mere five year old at the time with the Vietnamese war still ongoing through that early period, and the social stigma thereafter? The Vietnam Babylift came later, in 1975.

One would think that a single male running around with an Asian appearing five year old through this period might have attracted at least someone’s attention.

Single father adoptions weren’t exactly an everyday occurrence back then… .

The more we learn about George England, the more questions the entire mess raises.

As always, beyond the microcosm of the individual, many of those questions relate to the macrocosm of adoptionland.

How have the ways in which adoption is practiced in the United States and how adoption is so often laden with assumptions of altruism, (and thus adopters themselves are assumed to be wonderful or even ’saintly’ people) played into enabling monsters like England to get away with what he, up until now, by and large has?

Ongoing corruption and falsified paperwork in Nepal, a suspension, pending a review of adoptions from Swaziland, and child buying and selling, errrr “media reports alleging direct recruitment” in Ethiopia.

Nepal Alert

Caution About Pursuing an Adoption in Nepal March 4, 2010

The U.S. Department of State strongly discourages prospective adoptive parents from choosing Nepal as a country from which to adopt due to grave concerns about the reliability of Nepal’s adoption system and the accuracy of the information in children’s official files. The Department also strongly discourages adoption service providers from accepting new applications for adoption from Nepal until reforms are made, and to be vigilant about operating in an ethical manner under the current adoption system.

the Alert continues (emphasis original to the document):

The Hague Conference on Private International Law recently released a report on its Intercountry Adoption Technical Assistance Program, based on a visit by a delegate from the Hague Conference’s Permanent Bureau to Nepal in November 2009 (http://www.hcch.net/upload/wop/nepal_rpt09.pdf). This report is the result of an independent analysis of Nepal’s intercountry adoption system under the new Terms and Conditions put in place in 2008. The report details a number of weaknesses in Nepal’s current adoption system, including the falsification of documents, improper financial gain, and lack of a child protection system.

Based on our own observations and experience with adoption cases in Nepal, the U.S. Department of State shares many of the concerns outlined in the Hague report. In one of the first cases processed by the Government of Nepal after the revision of the Terms and Conditions, the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu found that the adopted child was not a true orphan and that her birth parents were actively searching for her.

We encourage parents who have filed an application with the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MWCSW) in Nepal, but have not yet been matched with a child or received an Adoption Decree issued by the Government of Nepal, to consider a change of countries. The Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), allow one change of country to be made in connection with one’s I-600A application without fee. A request to change countries should be made in writing to the USCIS Field Office where the I-600A was originally filed. (Any subsequent request for a change of country would require a fee.)

Swaziland Alert

Adoption Alert March 1, 2010

On February 24, 2010, the Deputy Prime Minister of Swaziland informed the U.S. Embassy in Mbabane that it will not process intercountry adoptions cases while the Department of Social Welfare completes a review of its adoption procedures. Only cases that were already with the Swaziland High Court will be processed during the review. The U.S. Embassy in Mbabane has not been provided with an expected completion date of the review.

Ethiopia Notice

Change in Processing Timeline for Adoption Cases March 5, 2010

The Department of State shares families’ concerns about recent media reports alleging direct recruitment of children from birth parents by adoption service providers or their employees. In response to these reports, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa has implemented some changes to adoption visa processing.

Oh you mean pesky little allegations like this or this about the apparent lies offered up by Christian World Adoption Agency.

Child buying and selling apparently only merits a mere “Notice” (as opposed to an alert.)

Naturally, these promises of an education, of families of origin being able to regain their children, etc should be all too familiar to anyone paying attention to the Haitian adoption mess. It’s the standard pitch. This is what inter-country adoption relies upon to extract kids.

Naturally the CBS piece is more concerned with the families who adopted the kids, not the families left behind.

The Notice continues:

If families have concerns about their adoption, we ask that they share this information with the Embassy, particularly if it involves possible fraud or misconduct specific to your child’s case. The Embassy takes all allegations of fraud or misconduct seriously.

The best way to contact the Embassy is by email at ConsAdoptionAddis@state.gov. Please include your name, your child’s name, your adoption agency, the date of the adoption (month and year), and, if possible, the immigrant visa case number for your child’s case (this number begins with the letters ADD followed several numbers and can be found on any document sent to you by the National Visa Center). Please let us know if we have your permission to share concerns about your specific case with Ethiopian government officials.

We strongly encourage you to register any complaint that you may have about an adoption agency in the following ways:

*You may file a complaint with the state licensing authority where your adoption agency is licensed and conducts business. The Child Welfare Information Gateway, which is maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, provides such a list at the link below: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/reslist/rl_dsp.cfm?rs_id=15&rate_chno=AZ-0008E

*You may also file a report with the state’s Better Business Bureau. Following is the link to the Better Business Bureau’s website where you may file a complaint on-line: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx

*If your agency is a Hague-accredited adoption service provider, you are encouraged to file a complaint on the Hague Complaint Registry located at the link below. This information will be used by the accrediting entities to evaluate the agency in connection with the renewal of its accreditation status. http://adoption.state.gov/hague/overview/complaints.html

The U.S. Embassy continues to work with the Government of Ethiopia to ensure that appropriate safeguards exist to protect prospective adoptive children, their birth parents, and prospective adoptive parents. Please continue to monitor adoption.state.gov for updated information.

Just how bad have adoptions out of Ethiopia gotten?

Bad enough that one of the industry trade lobbies, the Joint Council of International Children’s Services (JCICS) has decided to supress its own internal report on the situation in Ethiopia. (Note that JCICS is not and should never be described as a “watchdog” as the industry is by definition, unable to “watchdog” itself.)

Christian World Adoption belongs to both of the major trade lobbies. It is both a National Council for Adoption (NCFA) and Joint Council member agency.

Readers may also want to read across to the CWA page taking note of for example, the agency’s political connections:

Our director was former president and liaison between the JCICS and the U.S. Congress concerning adoption legislation.

Not exactly surprising, especially considering her medical condition.

(How insane do you have to be to be diabetic and yet run off to a post earthquake disaster zone where access to electricity and access to refrigeration is marginal at best?)

In any case, she was released this afternoon and taken to the airport by U.S. Embassy staff.

See Haiti frees US missionary; group leader still held

and American missionary held in Haiti released

Silsby answered questions in Saint-Vil’s office Monday. Later, she refused to comment on what the judge asked her, but she said she was happy Coulter had been released. She added that she expected to be released soon.

Silsby repeated comments denying she’d done anything wrong and said she was still in custody “because I’m the leader.

Saint-Vil said that he has some additional questions that he needs answered but that he expects to make a decision about Silsby’s detention by the end of the week.

While Laura Sislby is listed as the New Life Children’s Refuge “Executive Director and Founder” Charisa Coulter was certainly more than merely Sislby’s live in nanny.

Coulter was listed in the Central Valley Baptist Church online marketing material for the mission as New Life Children’s Refuge “VP and co-founder.”

By way of a brief refresher overview on the Rendells’ Raid, readers may want to refer back to this piece from my earlier post Haiti series- “It is madness. It is insane…” Bribes, Bullies, and Traffickers extract kids, Part 4: Kids not in an adoption process being exported, bullies and bribes & the Rendells’ Raid.

Now, at the beginning of March, the cost to taxpayers is finally coming to light, see Gov. Ed Rendell’s trip to rescue 54 Haitian orphans cost taxpayers after all

Gov. Ed Rendell has described his January rescue mission that brought 54 orphans out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti to Pennsylvania as one that cost taxpayers nothing.

But the state plane log for January shows there was a cost to taxpayers after all.

The state Department of Public Welfare was charged $5,578.29 for use of the state plane to transport the governor and the state’s first lady, Judge Marjorie Rendell, to and from Pittsburgh. Once in Pittsburgh, they then boarded a privately-funded plane to travel to Haiti.

At the time Governor Rendell had insisted:

“This trip cost the taxpayers of Pennsylvania nothing,” Rendell said after the trip to Haiti.

His spokesman, Gary Tuma, was quick to excuse Gov. Rendell’s lie as only pertaining to the U.S. to Haiti leg of the trip, which yes, was by way of a private flight:

“I’m sure he interpreted the questions about cost to taxpayers to mean the trip from Pennsylvania to Haiti.”

However, this spun narrative also ignores the fact that the kids, (some of whom were not matched to any American would-be-adopters,)  left Haiti on an American Military flight, which again, also would have also come at a cost to the taxpayers.

Once in Florida, the group left the military flight and reconnected with their private flight for the final leg back to Pennsylvania.

The welfare department was billed for the cross-state flight because of “the children and youth function related to these kids,” said Stacey Witalec, a department spokeswoman.

Let’s get this straight,that $5,578.29 came out of the Pennsylvania welfare budget so Governor Rendell, and his wife, Marjorie O. Rendell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit could fly cross state to meet the private flight that took them, Representative Jason Altmire, and a number of Doctors and Nurses on to Haiti.

In essence, he’s arguing his cross state flight to meet the plane that would take them on to Haiti was PART OF the ‘humanitarian aid’/child extraction related trip.

Pennsylvania’s first family flying across the state, the first leg of their trip, had nothing to do with kids. There were no kids on board.

Simply put, there was no “children and youth function related to kids” about the Governor flying cross state to meet a flight, but if you think he’s going to own up to that fact and restore the money to the state’s welfare budget, think again:

Rendell has no plans on reimbursing the department for the trip, Tuma said.

But wouldn’t you know it, this gets even worse, because Tuma goes on to argue the flight billed to the taxpayers was to “assist the McMurtrie sisters….”

Ali and Jamie McMurtrie work with the BRESMA orphanage in Port-au-Prince, an explicitly “faith based” christian “orphanage.”

Donations to BRESMA are funneled through the  Keystone Center of Life Church in Pittsburgh (see link).

Now in the aftermath of the quake, donations are coming at a rapid pace for the destroyed “orphanage:”

Donations continue to pour into the Keystone Church of Hazelwood on behalf of an orphanage that is uninhabitable,…

So what we’re really talking about here is Governor Rendell flying cross state and charging $5,578.29 to the Pennsylvania state welfare budget and then saying that cross state flight was somehow in support of an explicitly religious based ‘child saving’  mission (yes, complete with all the christian implications of “child saving” you might envision. ) Emphasis added by me:

He said the governor’s cross-state travels were not merely to help out foreign kids, but also to assist the McMutrie sisters and to fly medical supplies and a team of Pennsylvania medical personnel to Haiti.

“Considering the benefit to the 54 orphans, to the two native Pittsburghers needing assistance in Haiti, and to the Pennsylvania citizens who made up the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center humanitarian relief team, the cost of several thousand dollars is not unreasonable,” Tuma said.

Such can only be portrayed as “reasonable” if you have first bought the notion that the state should exist in order to come to the church’s aid in times of the church’s need. For those of us who reject such theocratic poppycock, we think it’s time that $5,578.29 went back into the welfare fund for impoverished Pennsylvanians, for starters.

Even wingnuts like Matthew Brouillette of the Commonwealth Foundation recognize the public relations mess Governor Rendell’s trip has created and, never one to miss an opportunity to bash Democrats, is quoted in the article  as finding  Governor Rendell’s (who was the general chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 Presidential election) trip “disturbing:”

But Matthew Brouillette, president of the conservative-leaning policy center Commonwealth Foundation of Harrisburg, found the governor’s statement disturbing.

Naturally, Brouillette would rather see the cross state trip be privately funded:

Brouillette suggested that perhaps the medical center should pick up the tab for the good public relations they derived out of this trip.

Paul Wood, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center vice president for public relations, said the medical center has no intention of reimbursing the state for any cost taxpayers incurred. He said he was unaware there was a cost.

Instead, it appears the state will end up simply eating the cost, putting further strain on a state welfare budget already underfunded and facing demands from every direction imaginable:

This is a difficult time for Pennsylvania and many of its residents. The state barely slid through last year’s budget crisis, revenues are still not what had been expected, the federal stimulus money is going to be drying up, long-term transportation funding is uncertain and the pension crisis is about to hit.

Meanwhile, unemployment remains high and the demand on social services is only increasing.

Nothing like taking from the poor to buttress child evangelism efforts.

Now, just when you think this mess has gotten about as twisted as it possibly can? Along comes Governor Rendell’s own policies regarding travel by state personnel and attempting to curtail even in state travel when possible as a cost cutting measure (which should be more than enough to break anyone’s irony meter permanently.)

As Patriot-News Capitol Bureau Chief Jan Murphy reported Sunday, in the nine months after state workers were banned from traveling outside of Pennsylvania, there have been 5,482 trips across the state border.

Of those, 4,893 trips costing more than $1.8 million were under Gov. Ed Rendell’s jurisdiction. And it was the governor who on Sept. 16, 2008, said that in light of the state’s mounting budget deficit he was prohibiting out-of-state travel by commonwealth employees, board members and commissioners.

Apparently the Governor feels budget cutting in relation to travel is for other people, not for him or his family, and their religiously based extra curricular “orphan” collecting activities.

Laura Silsby remains in the Haitian jail pending further investigation.

The Daily Bastardette post pretty much says all I would, and contains the pertinent links:

SAINT-VIL: SILSBY HELD FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION; COULTER HOME SOON

I have very little to add beyond how deeply disgusted I am that it appears the responsibility is being artificially narrowed down to land on Laura Silsby when clearly her actions would not have been possible but for a long chain of responsibility and culpability, the actions of many people, firmly rooted in the Baptist church networks that financed, enabled, and gathered the raw personnel for the “mission.”

There’s plenty of blame to go around, from Central Valley Baptist Church using its tax status to collect funds for the scavenger team (the New Life Children’s Refuge team itself was split across the two countries some in Haiti others in the Dominican Republic also see this link for more on the D.R. side of the team) on through to those that enabled the New Life team on the ground in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

If Laura Silsby alone is held responsible for the actions of so many, she would likely be held up as little more than a symbol used to signify that some semblance of law does still exist in Haiti.

Not surprisingly, the Prime Minister has made it clear he considers the focus on the child scavengers a “distraction.” Haiti would no doubt be content to utilize an unsympathetic character the likes of Laura Sislby as a personification  or personal embodiment of what went wrong here.

But as I’ve said before and will continue to point out, she did not act alone, nor does she alone bear responsibility.

Around the time of the initial release of the first 8, I wrote two pieces:

The 73 Haitian kids deserve genuine justice, not a premature release of the scavengers

and

Haiti fails its children, releases 8 Child Scavengers on nothing more than their (worthless) word

Both of which are worth revisiting at this juncture as I find much of what I’d have to say, I’ve already written. I consider the initial release of the 8 not merely premature, but a basic failure of Justice.

Adding Charisa Coulter, the “VP and co-founder” of New Life Children’s Refuge to that tally of what I can only view as releases prior to a full investigation (which would have to take place across three countries at this point, the United States, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic) leaves  Laura Silsby in the role of “fall guy” (or gal,) for an effort she clearly, provably at this point, was but one part of.

Yes, as I wrote earlier today in a comment at the Daily Bastardette, it seems everyone would love to get this over and done with, get it behind them so as to go on about the many things they are already doing.

Haiti has far too many minute to minute life and death real world problems to handle.  The situation is simply dire. The rains and the flooding are what matters here, not some idiot from Idaho and her buddies whining about only getting one meal a day, usually chicken while Haitians starve.

The United States has been perfectly content to fly the other 8 home on a military flight at taxpayer expense and then let them fade quietly back into the American landscape. While Silsby, again, might make a useful scapegoat when and if she makes it back to U.S. soil she certainly did not do any of this all by her little lonesome. At this point, she’s more likely to face an American court over her back wages owed former employees than for attempted child trafficking in another country.

The adoption industry both here in the U.S. and around the world would like nothing better than for the entire world to suffer collective amnesia concerning both the New Lifers and the issues raised in terms of what terminology such as “orphan” and “orphanage” can mean in practical application.

But as for Bastard Bloggers and others who actually care about the kids, their families of origin (who were clearly lied to, and therefore any ‘consent’ they may have given was based upon those lies), and importantly, the NEXT batch of kids someone’s going to try to traffic into intercountry adoptions somewhere down the line?

We want to see Justice done.

Genuine Justice, not symbolic justice, not Laura Silsby being made a singular and personal example of, as if she herself was a mere aberration.

Actions such as these by the New Lifers and those who made their “mission” possible, when not met with swift and harsh consequences, are all too often repeated.

Child scavenging in the wake of national cataclysm should be met with the harshest of sentences, not media puff pieces about “good intentions” or military flights home to staged ‘heroes’ welcomes.’

Child traffickers are human scum, not heroes.

They should be penalized and ostracized, not idolized.

Apparently not.

By way of keeping this post short and to the point, I’m going to focus tightly down to five quotes from two articles:

Baptist Pastor: We’d Do It Again in Haiti from February 2nd

and

Detained US missionary: I’d come back to Haiti which as I write this is less than 24 hours old.

You would think that sitting in a Haitian jail for a few weeks might help Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter pull their heads out of their collective asses as far as not becoming re-entangled in the complexities of child custody and the so called “orphan” trade and adoptions in relation to Haitian children, but no.

Not having the benefit of access to media in their cell, they apparently blithely want nothing more than to continue on with their adoption centered so called “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” upon their release.

Laura Silsby (from here):

…she wants to go ahead with setting up that orphanage…

Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter (from here):

…both of us would come back to Haiti…

&

We would definitely come back to help them once this misunderstanding or whatever you want to call it is sorted out.

In light of such personal delusion and failure to comprehend that they have done anything wrong, if the Judge releases them, I suppose we can expect to see these New Lifers headed right back into Haiti for “orphans round 2″ the sequel, instead of experiencing new lives behind bars.

Then you have we haven’t learned a damn thing comments such as the below from the assistant pastor of the church that used its tax status to collect money to send their members Silsby, Coulter, Carla Thompson (the church’s “missions director”) and others to Haiti.

(Again, I remain convinced “New Life Children’s Refuge” is best described as Central Valley Baptist Church’s Haitian “orphans” mission, it being an almost wholy owned subsidiary of CVBC and CVBC’s members. )

Central Valley Baptist Church’s assistant pastor Drew Ham (from here):

Based on the information we have, I’m not sure that we would do anything different. I think they did handle it in the best manner possible.

Which again, comes back to that “we’d do it again” aspect of  the article, but goes further implying they wouldn’t do anything differently if given the chance (other than of course, the getting caught part.)

So, the question becomes, just how serious is Central Valley Baptist Church about doing it again?

That’s not a question I can answer, but it is a question the Judge should weigh heavily as he contemplates releasing these child traffickers.

Finally, you have the adoption industry’s reaction and response to the New Lifers, and how much their actions threw a wrench into the industry’s ongoing demands that Haiti ‘open up and make adoptions easier,’ that were commonly heard long before the earthquake.

National Council for Adoption’s (NCFA’s) chief operating officer, Chuck Johnson (from here):

…calls the Baptist group’s actions a “critical mistake” that could undercut efforts to expand adoptions.

Yeah, you heard that right, Johnson and NCFA can’t condemn Silsby and the New Lifer’s actions, all they can do is bemoan how these rank amateurs got in the industry’s way, essentially getting underfoot and tripping up the industry’s best laid plans at export expansion.

They drew too much attention to the issue at exactly the point Haitian adoptions are currently going through the roof, making it a bit more difficult for the industry on the public relations front, even as the child exports continue.

So, lessons learned?

Hell no.

If anything, all four want to come back for more Haitian kids (each in their own way, of course.)

It takes sheer unmitigated gall to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar only to proudly announce and promise that the minute watchful eyes are taken off you, you’ll be getting right back in there, all over again.

The Wall Street Journal article Teresa references below concerning Laura’s Silsby’s apparent previous attempt at building a complex in Kuna, Idaho for runaway youth via Idaho contractor Eric Evans has been a side saga all its own. In the wake of the article Eric Evans, the contractor the WSJ spoke to about the proposed complex back tracked and began a series of  denials almost immediately after the article hit.

Fortunately, another blogger followed up on Evan’s denial with the Wall Street Journal getting this response:

Robert Christie, Dow Jones & Co. Spokesman, speaking on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, confirmed to me “we stand by our story” referring to Eric Evans denial today in the Idaho Statesman of comments he made in a February 3 WSJ article.

Evans denial is not surprising considering how by early February, a number of people connected to Laura Silsby previously were distancing themselves just as quickly as possible.

The Evans side saga is but one of many such back peddles, but if true, Silsby’s earlier vision for an Idaho based facility would certainly be in keeping with broader trends in “runaway youth”, “orphan,” “maternity camp” and “troubled teens” containment, all growing segments of the christian child detainment industry.

Much as I was going to write about how Silsby fits well into the broader trend, my commenter, Teresa has done so with the clarity of her own first-hand experience:

Teresa Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:34 am e

If I may, I would like to share a comment I posted last night on this blog (that is still awaiting moderation….)

http://www.newuniversity.org/2010/03/opinion/doing-good-badly-when-intention-matters/

I find your article insightful without a doubt. However, if you would allow me to bring up one point that I find the press and other writers are totally overlooking (or maybe purposely ignoring), it would be most appreciated. I see that your entire piece centers around this question: “Why did Silsby try to illegally smuggle Haitian children across the border?” The two answers you relayed were these: “out of duty to help the Haitian families”, and “to alleviate her feelings of helplessness”. I will agree with you on the latter as well, but not for the same reason as you.

Since the story of Silsby’s and her companions arrests, I have followed this drama closely. The reason behind this is because approximately 29 years ago, I was a resident of a fundamental girl’s home in Louisiana called New Bethany. The director of this place (who also ran a boy’s facility under the same name) would tour all over the United States with select “residents”, prompting them to sing like angels and give testimony to the congregations of the numerous churches they would visit. Then this man would solicit church members for a “love offering” in order to finance his operation. He would declare that his “homes” were supported only by donations submitted by church members or private organizations who had been blessed by the singing and testimony of “his” girls(made to feel the obligation). Little did these church members know that the parents of these same children were invoiced monthly for the schooling and boarding of their children. The director of this home would claim from whatever church pulpit he might be standing behind at the time that his “girl’s refuge” was a christian, love-filled place where girls were given the opportunity to have a good education, horse-back riding, swimming, and all number of recreational activities. Please, if you would, remember this part, as it is important.

A rough calculation had been done recently by another former resident who found that possibly THOUSANDS of children had resided under this man’s “care”. While we girls lived in a roach-infested dormitory, being fed starch-laden (and who knows what else) food, and made to bathe in and drink water so sulphur-filled that it smelled of rotten eggs, the director and his family lived on the same property in a newly-built, two-story brick house with a separate water supply.

To get to my point, when the Wall Street Journal article came out a few weeks ago about Silsby’s failed “pre-Haiti” plans in Kuna, ID with the following description: “Ms. Silsby had equally grand ambitions closer to home, according to a local builder. The Idaho plan called for a “multi-million-dollar complex” for runaway children on a 40-acre lot in Kuna, Idaho…… Ms. Silsby told him it would have an indoor swimming pool, tennis courts and dormitories for the children….”, the familiarity in this description jumped right out at me.

Considering all of Silsby’s failed “business ventures” in Idaho (one I’m sure being her “children’s home”) before her jaunt to Haiti, I most certainly can see how she might feel helpless, and even desperate in finding a way to validate herself from a combination of a “christian/BUSINESS” standpoint.

I won’t go into all the OTHER things that happened over the space of three decades at New Bethany. I have included the URL for the website for that. You can also glean a plethora of additional information by simply googling the name.

Lasly, I would like to add that there are MANY homes operating as mirror images of New Bethany in the United States as we speak. As a matter of fact, TODAY 3/1/10, if you google “Reclamation Ranch” you will find that the director of THIS place was scheduled to be in court in Blount Co. AL facing some pretty serious charges. He is also blatantly asking for “donations” to his legal defense fund.

My primary question about this whole debacle is: Considering that Kuna, ID appears to be a hotbed of fundamentalism, containing churches that support places just like the ones I described above, could it be possible that Laura Silsby knew of them? Or maybe even knew someone who formerly/presently operate(d)/(s) or was employed at such a place, and filled her in on how much money she could make if she opened one? I think if this question could be answered, then quite a few more answers regarding her true intentions would come to the forefront. Thanks for letting me post here.

I am all too familiar with such facilities. Frequently advertised in the back of christian and even secular magazines, promising a religiously based “solution” to “troubled youth” programs such as these, and their pregnancy industry cousins, the maternity camps dot the landscape. Some have roots going back more than a century, others have been formed far more recently. Kids are warehoused and left to endure all manners of “discipline” while the founders often live in relative luxury.

Sadly, with the popular trend in christians focusing upon “orphancare” both as a long term means for potential movement growth and in the more immediate time frame the as a funding stream for various child related programs, often via State and Federal “faith based” grants, facilities such as these are if anything becoming all the more common, not less so.

Thanks Teresa, for speaking out about your experiences and hopefully helping readers gain further insight into the industry to which the New Lifers hoped to become a part.

It was a project built upon church networks, and supported financially by churches and the members thereof.

In this post, I’m going to focus on Central Valley Baptist, but obviously it represents only one of at minimum, five churches that had members either in Haiti or the Dominican Republic working as part of the “New Life Children’s Refuge” team:

• Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho (Laura Silsby, Charisa Coulter, Carla Thompson, Corinna Lankford, & Nicole Lankford)
• Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho (In Haiti- Pastor Paul Thompson, Silas Thompson & Steve McMullen and in the Dominican Republic- Matt Crider, Lora Crider &  John Requa)
• Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas (Jim Allen)
• Bethel Baptist Church Topeka, Kansas (Drew Culbert)
• First Baptist Church in Andrews, Texas (see Bastardette’s post)

As I said some time back, prior to the (vastly premature) release of the 8 missionary scavengers, to even begin to get a handle on the scope of the effort, a thorough investigation would have to take place in at least three countries:

A full investigation would require information gathering in at least three countries at this point, the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti itself.

Sure enough, evidence of church financial involvement has begun to surface.

Take this document,  Google’s cache of Central Valley Baptist Church’s  Haitian “orphan” mission that had been on Central Valley Baptist church’s website.

CVBC’s Pastor Clint Henry describes 5 of the 10 who go on to be arrested in Haiti, including Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter as

our Haiti Rescue Team

as part of his plea to raise money for expenses relating to the team’s child collecting trip in Haiti.

Carla Thompson, herself one of those who goes on to be arrested in Haiti goes on to add:

We have sent a team to Haiti…

Carla Thompson is listed in the document’s sidebar as Central Valley Baptist Church’s Missions Coordinator.

Her arrest in Haiti as part of the child collection mission then must be viewed in full context, that of the CVBC Missions Coordinator arrested in the course of her missionary work on behalf of the church itself.

Silby’s New Life cannot be viewed as a distinct entity somehow separate from Central Valley Baptist Church, rather, it must be viewed as a project of the church, receiving direct financial support by way of Central Valley’s church tax status as donations to the New Life mission were explicitly being solicited for and collected by Central Valley under the umbrella of the church’s tax status. Again see the document from Google’s cache (emphasis is my own):

We need to raise $2,000 in the next 24 hours for our Haiti Rescue Team. We have already had $10,000 committed to this mission. Please help us! Call the church office and bring your gift in right now!

and

Finances:

*Support the Temporary Orphanage in Cabarete, Dominican Republic
*Support a Response Team to Dominican Republic $1500.00 each

Both of these are tax deductable donations that need to be given through Central Valley Baptist Church. Write on the Memo Line: Haitian Orphans.

Finances to support these on-going needs:
Needed NOW!

* Teddy Bears for a Traumatized child to hold New (or almost new)
* Non Latex Surgical Gloves
* Diapers & Pull ups
* Wet Wipes
* 100 Twin Sheets , 50 Full Size Sheets clean, (used ok)
* Baby & Toddler Formula
* Pediasure & Powdered Gatorade
* Powerbars
* Hand Sanitizer
* Hospital Soaker Pads, Surgical Masks, Gauze, Antibiotics and ointments
* Tylenol Liquid & Chewables, Deworming Medicine, Hospital Soaker Pads

Please bring these donations to Central Valley Baptist Church. A bin will be located in the Hall by the kitchen.

Central Valley was collecting (what it claimed would be) “tax deductable” donations on behalf of their team: Sislby and other “Central Valley Baptist Church team” members.

Once the request for donations went out, CVBC saw its members respond:

Before the Jan. 12 earthquake, two church members had started a charity in hopes of building an orphanage in the Dominican Republic for Haitian children. But once the magnitude of the devastation became apparent, Laura Silsby, 40, and Charisa Coulter, 24, accelerated their plan.

They asked the church’s missions program to help them get to the impoverished island nation as soon as possible and, according to family and friends, secured a motel in the Dominican Republic that could function as an orphanage. The congregation responded, Henry said. Stacks of donated goods began piling up in the church lobby.

The quote above from the L.A. Times makes it appear Silsby was the one requesting the donations, but as we see from the cached document, no less than CVBC’s Pastor, Clint Henry himself was asking his membership directly.

Money, as well as items came in according to Henry:

The 500-member church, where signs taped to large bins on Sunday read “Donations for Haiti,” gave several thousand dollars toward the mission, Henry said.

But even while employing language such as “our team” and using the church’s tax status as means by which money could be funneled to New Life, the church has attempted to create the fiction of a “separation” (emphasis mine:)

Henry told reporters Sunday that the organization and the mission is separate from the 25-year-old church, which has been involved in at least 100 different mission trips involving construction projects and assisting in medical relief efforts both in the United States and overseas.

Let’s be clear here, you cannot both collect donations headed for New Life and promise donors that their donations, funneled through your church will be tax deductable under the church’s tax status and then turn around and pretend New Life is somehow “separate” from the church.

While Laura Silsby (listed as “New Life Children Refuge Executive Director and Founder”) and Charisa Coulter (listed as VP and co-founder)  also headed up New Life, New Life cannot be seen as a separate entity from Central Valley Baptist Church.

New Life was, in effect was Central Valley Baptist Church’s Haitian “orphans” mission.

The media has a terrible habit of attempting containerize people and organizations, feeling that if they can be associated with one organization that somehow precludes involvement in another, as if church and ministry involvement for individuals is some kind of zero sum game. Yet clearly, Silsby, Coulter, Carla Thompson and others are better described as “both/and” or as wearing multiple hats at any one given point in time.

This has led to false impressions of Laura Silsby (who is let’s face it, is quite the unsympathetic character with a previous history of screwing over her own employees) as some form of evil mastermind with other ‘god fearing, do-gooders’ in tow, merely along for the ride, naive and innocent of any nefarious plans. In the pop perception Silsby alone bears their animosity, whilst the other team members actions are excused.

She makes a good ‘fall guy’ and allows American’s notions of the ‘nice church folk’ down the block go unchallenged.

These artificial barriers are useful not only to the media narrative, but certainly to the other ‘team’ members and churches as well.

Occasional blog posts such as Why is all the blame being put on Laura Silsby when her own pastor was involved? point out the foolishness of such container-i-zations.

Silsby AND the rest of the CVBC arrestees were working together on behalf of their church’s mission’s program. ALL bear responsibility.

Furthermore, Pastor Henry and those who wrote the checks that enabled Silsby and the rest of the Central Baptist team to do what they did may also bear some responsibilty.

The cached document that had been on Central Valley’s website lays out their team’s “plan” sumarized thusly:

Rescue Orphans from Port au Prince, Haiti

JAN. 22 (Friday/Saturday): NLCR team fly to the DR

JAN. 23 (Sunday): Drive bus from Santo Domingo into Port au Prince, Haiti and gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the DR

JAN. 24 (Monday): Bus arrives in Cabarete, DR at New Life Children Refuge

Nowhere in that summary is there any mention of gaining permission from Haitian authorities. If anything, in the sidebar, under “prayer requests” the document ONLY makes mention of the role of the government of the Dominican Republic:

For God to continue to grant favor with the Dominican Government in allowing us to bring as many orphans as we can into the Dominican Republic

Note that this even goes beyond the 100-150 kids mentioned at various points, expanding the goal all the way out to an open ended “as many orphans as we can.”

As other bloggers and I have pointed out repeatedly, the documents the “team” had drawn up before leaving for Haiti, their mission plan were clearly known beforehand to at least some in the church structures. Note that this document, for example, has been, and continues to be available on the Eastside Baptist Church website.

I’m an Ohio Bastard from the black hole years. I am one of the people whose access was bargained away in a previous “compromise.”

I have nothing but contempt for these notions of “a little” civil, human, and identity rights.

“Partial” civil rights for a lucky few are not civil rights, they are mere state granted favors, given out to some through an arbitrary process, at a direct and lasting cost to others.

Once you grant the state the ability to pick and chose who it will grant these special privileges to, one should not be the least bit surprised to see access actually DECREASE, not increase, as once the state has been granted that power it tends to exercise it in accord with its own interests.

When you look at examples such as “birthparent vetos” it rapidly becomes clear just how much this gutting of our most basic human rights really is nothing more than a state granted favour granted to a select few.

It’s a not merely a favour, but a really special favour, a downright extraordinary favour being granted by the state in that establishes a prior restraint on our constitutional right to freedom of association not based upon behaviour (such an anti-stalking law would have its basis in), but merely upon our membership in a class of people, those adopted.

Beyond the human rights arguments, there are also very practical reasons to never settle for legislation that bargains people away.

Those who are willing to settle for ‘these now, don’t worry, we’ll come back later for the rest of you’ may have many years worth of having begged for those table scraps, but they may not have much insight into the larger picture of what happens in the wake of such legislative abominations.

Sadly, I’ve done precisely that work (in fields other than adoption) of trying to come back in in the aftermath of “compromised” legislation to try to get regain the pieces that were bargained away.

It doesn’t work.

For roughly the next 20 years after passing that kind of turning point legislation state legislators will tell whoever comes next ‘we just gave you X, we’re not going to go back and address those issues again.”

Try seeking out a sponsor for restoration legislation in the wake of a “compromised” bill, you don’t get anywhere.

Those bargained away are now a subset of a subset, “compromised” legislation decreases whatever small political voice they had access to in the first place.

Ultimately, we’re left behind.

Whatever political voice we do manage to construct tends to be a small gathering of those left behind, as in adoption more generally, many adoptees tend to care about records access as a political issue only until they manage to get a copy of theirs for themselves. A much smaller number continue to care about other adopted people’s access after they have their own, and of those still around, fewer still are willing to stand strong on a no-compromise position.

But no-compromise is, as Triona points out, the only way to ensure that after access is granted YOU won’t find yourself counted among the few whose access is Vetoed, Black Holed, or otherwise non-existent.

Do I understand the heartbreak and anguish of New Jersey? Of course I do.

Yes we are all getting older, and the lifetimes worth of missed opportunities that non-adopted people simply never have to give so much as a thought to can easily drive a Bastard or a Parent, (or sibling or other family member) insane.

But, and this is a dealbreaker of a BUT, I’m not willing to support any legislation that creates a “special” class of Bastards consigned to the “expendable” bin.

Because I live there.

I wouldn’t wish such a fate on anyone.