Human Predators Stalk Haiti's Vulnerable Kids

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One of Laura's companies:

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2188541/Simplify-Your-Holiday-Shopping-With.html

BOISE, Idaho -- AvenueMe has just released its newest Desktop Personal Shopper(TM) software that takes the work out of finding the perfect gift for everyone on your holiday shopping list by delivering gift ideas, tailored to each recipient's profile and interests, directly to your desktop. The software and service are available at no cost from AvenueMe's website at http://www.avenueme.com/ .

AvenueMe's Desktop Personal Shopper offers an unparalleled personal shopping experience," says Laura Silsby, CEO of AvenueMe. "We simplify holiday shopping for busy, time-starved people so they have more time to enjoy the holiday season with family and friends."


Link to this site is no longer working.
 
She changed the name of the company from AvenueMe to PersonalShopper within a couple of years. The documents can be seen onlne at the Idaho State thingie.
 
Melly--You made a good point about the US authorities not breaking their necks to get these people home or to even intervene. I wonder if they know full well what they were planning?

I, too, also feel a bit sorry for the young people she drug along with her. If I were their parents, I wouldn't be too pleased. Did anyone figure out why the one young woman is referred to as a nanny? Does that mean for Laura's children or for the Haitian children?

Nobody's found any reference to Laura caring for other people's children in her own home in Idaho, have they? I sure don't want to find out that she's been bringing kids here somehow illegally for the last year or so.

BTW, has anyone read if the group flew directly into Port au Prince? If they did, what did they tell the authorities? People going in are being questioned pretty thoroughly as to what group they are with and what they are planning to do. I can just hear Laura now......"let me do all the talking".
 
They couldn't possibly have flown directly into PauP, the commercial flights weren't scheduled to resume until about Jan 28th, if then. They went to the DR first.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100204...5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNwYXJlbnRzd2lsbGk-

Parents willingly gave children to US Baptists


I've never seen a story morph and change more in my entire life!! Now, we have the Baptists in a soccer field pitching their idea of a child utopia in the DR. Adoptions...no adoptions. Contact, if need be. Many parents fell for it and signed their kids away to them. Pay attention to a few of these statements:

"It all began last week when a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.

Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there. Many parents jumped at the offer."

and

"The group packed 40 plastic bins of donated goods into a U-Haul trailer and drove to Salt Lake City on Jan. 22, where they took a flight to the Dominican Republic. They made their way to Haiti, where four days later, they were introduced to Adrien."

and

"Adrien, who had served as the go-between and translator for the missionaries, said he had no knowledge of the group's larger plans; villagers said they were told none of their children would be offered for adoption.

Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician, said he gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6, because Silsby had previously visited the area and earned people's trust. Lelly said he is no longer so sure about her trustworthiness.

and

The Rev. Jean Sainvil told the AP that some of the children were orphans and might have been put up for adoption. Children with parents were to be kept in the Dominican Republic, and would not lose contact with their families, Sainvil said in Atlanta.

"Everybody agreed that they knew where the children were going. The parents were told, and we confirmed they would be allowed to see the children and even take them back if need be," he said."
 
Like they say, MissIzzy -- the truth never changes...but lies sure do.
 
That's mighty.....kind of them. The parents can even take them back, if need be?
 
The stink just keeps getting worse!!! After reading this there is absolutely no way that anyone will ever convince me that Ms Silsby didn't know that what she was doing was illegal!!! :furious:

http://www.ktvb.com/video/featured-...t-with-cop-seeking-kids-passage-83479372.html

snipped from article --more at link

CNN talked to the translators who had been with the group in Haiti and he also talked to Laura Silsby from the jail in Haiti where she is being held.
Haitian translators who worked with the detained American missionaries say the group may have looked for help from a man they believe was a Haitian policeman and a Dominican official.

In a jailhouse interview over the weekend, the Americans conceded they didn't have passports or any permission from the Haitian government to take the kids out of the country. Steve Adrien was one of three young men who translated Creole to English for the American Baptists during their trip.

"They said that they have legal paper that they can take them to the doctor but that they didn't have it from the Haitians. So they met a police guy and he told them that he could help and he was helping them with some paper." He said the meeting did not take place in an office. "We did not meet him in a police station but in the street in a car."

Adrien's brother Isaac who also worked as a translator for the Americans said the Baptists met the man who appeared to be a policeman on two occasions in Port au Prince. "We saw him in Petionville that was on Tuesday and on Thursday I saw him at the Dominican embassy He was helping Laura to get in touch with the Ambassador in the Dominican embassy."

"We went to the Dominican consulate and were told to proceed straight to the border." But she had no authorization from the Haitian government to take the children out. Haitian police stopped the Americans’ bus at the border before it managed to cross. Minutes later Isaac Adrien - the only one of the three translators who made the trip to the border - says he heard Silsby put in a phone call.

"She called Jose, the guy's name was Jose."
"Who's Jose?"
"He was a policeman at the Dominican border."
"Is he Haitian or Dominican?"
"Dominican he came and talked to the Haitians but they would not listen to him."

On Tuesday night CNN went to the jail to talk once again to the American Baptists. They asked them if they knew a Haitian and a Dominican policeman. Initially they declined to answer that question and instead they responded by breaking into singing hymns. Later team leader Laura Silsby conceded she knew a man she described as a Haitian policeman she also said she knew another man she described as a Dominican coast guard. CNN asked her what her relationship was to those men, and if she asked them for help to cross the border. She simply responded that, "God put them in her way."
 
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/04/haiti.border.arrests/index.html?hpt=C1

The Dominican consul general Wednesday rejected the claim from an American church leader that she thought her paperwork was in order when she attempted to take 33 Haitian children out of the country, saying he had told her it was not.

"I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking," Carlos Castillo said he told the group's leader, Laura Silsby, during a meeting Friday.

Four hours later, Silsby and nine other Americans were turned back from the border. They were arrested and taken to a jail in Port-au-Prince.
"This woman knew what she was trying to do was not legal," Castillo said.

A CNN reporter attempted to get reaction to Castillo's comment from the jailed Americans, but they would not discuss the matter, responding to questions by singing "Amazing Grace" and praying.

Told earlier that many of the children had living parents, Silsby said, "I did not know that."

She added, "In our hearts, our intention was to help children that had been orphaned or abandoned by their parents."

more at link
 
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/03/child.trafficking/index.html?section=cnn_latest

The United States has committed an additional million dollars to fight child trafficking in Haiti in the wake of last month's earthquake, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Word of the action came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chaired the Obama administration's first meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Clinton, speaking in the meeting, called trafficking in people "one of the most important human rights issues we deal with." Yearly meetings of the task force were mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed 10 years ago.

Before the earthquake, the United States provided $500,000 for programs to protect children in Haiti from trafficking. The additional million is being shifted from other programs, officials said.
 
http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/1067267.html

Laura Silsby, a local missionary to Haiti, left trail of financial woes in Idaho

The Boise woman has a pattern of flouting laws. She's due in Ada court again this month.

"..........But even before Laura L. Silsby and seven other Idahoans ended up in a Haitian jail accused of trafficking in children, Silsby had a history of failing to pay debts, failing to pay her employees and failing even to follow Idaho laws.

Silsby has been the subject of eight civil lawsuits and 14 unpaid wage claims. The $358,000 Meridian house at which she founded her nonprofit New Life Children's Refuge in November was foreclosed upon in December.

A check of Silsby's driving record revealed at least nine traffic citations since 1997, including four for failing to provide insurance or register annually........."




Sounds to me that Ms. Silsby just doesn't think that the rules apply to her. This is not the sort of person who we want running a children's home, orphanage, or even serving as a missionary IMO.
 
I'm starting to think that Laura is more dangerous than we first thought. She's a pathological liar IMO. She knows full well that her every word is being reported. She's not stupid. How can she flip-flop the way she is, singing "Amazing Grace" (she'd better be praying for that!!). It's moving into the realm of "crazy lying", just what pathological liars do when they get caught.

I believe the story, told by a number of people, about the soccer field and the cobbled together meeting. Too many people were there, including parents, who have no reason to lie. And then when confronted with the statement that many of the children have parents, she responds, "I did not know that."

This woman is off her rocker. Step back and look at the pattern. Multiple marriages, multiple moves, multiple businesses, unpaid staff, lots of wild plans, feast or famine finances, some sort of charismatic personality which pulls people along for the ride, grandiosity, ramped up activity level, lack of shame or remorse. I'll eat your hat if it doesn't come out that this woman is supposed to be on serious bipolar meds. God must have told her she doesn't need them anymore. Remember I said this!!

I know many must think I have "bipolar on the brain" but when you live with loved ones suffering from this disorder as I do--and you've lived through the hell of someone being off their meds--you can spot it a continent away. I suspect we're going to read a story soon which says she's been carted off to a hospital. People with mood disorders simply wear others out with their frenzied actions. It's very easy to get duped by them as their ideas sound lucid "on the surface" and they seem so dedicated and hard-working. They have a strong tendency to leave out a few steps, things fall apart, so they move on to the next misadventure. For others it's like stepping onto a carnival ride that starts out slow and easy but then builds to a furious pitch. It just wasn't what you were expecting. You get off with your head spinning and wonder whatever made you think that was a good idea. Been there, done that--many many times.

Ms. Clinton needs to send a transport plane for this group. And let's not waste the fuel. Let's just stick them in the cargo section of a plane transporting very sick children to the US. We need to get them here and jail them in a federal holding tank until we figure out how best to follow Haiti's wishes on trying them. Enough is enough.

I love the idea of a Baptist No Fly List.
 
Missizzy said:
I'm starting to think that Laura is more dangerous than we first thought. She's a pathological liar IMO. She knows full well that her every word is being reported. She's not stupid. How can she flip-flop the way she is, singing "Amazing Grace" (she'd better be praying for that!!). It's moving into the realm of "crazy lying", just what pathological liars do when they get caught.

I believe the story, told by a number of people, about the soccer field and the cobbled together meeting. Too many people were there, including parents, who have no reason to lie. And then when confronted with the statement that many of the children have parents, she responds, "I did not know that."

This woman is off her rocker. Step back and look at the pattern. Multiple marriages, multiple moves, multiple businesses, unpaid staff, lots of wild plans, feast or famine finances, some sort of charismatic personality which pulls people along for the ride, grandiosity, ramped up activity level, lack of shame or remorse. I'll eat your hat if it doesn't come out that this woman is supposed to be on serious bipolar meds. God must have told her she doesn't need them anymore. Remember I said this!!

I know many must think I have "bipolar on the brain" but when you live with loved ones suffering from this disorder as I do--and you've lived through the hell of someone being off their meds--you can spot it a continent away. I suspect we're going to read a story soon which says she's been carted off to a hospital. People with mood disorders simply wear others out with their frenzied actions. It's very easy to get duped by them as their ideas sound lucid "on the surface" and they seem so dedicated and hard-working. They have a strong tendency to leave out a few steps, things fall apart, so they move on to the next misadventure. For others it's like stepping onto a carnival ride that starts out slow and easy but then builds to a furious pitch. It just wasn't what you were expecting. You get off with your head spinning and wonder whatever made you think that was a good idea. Been there, done that--many many times.

Ms. Clinton needs to send a transport plane for this group. And let's not waste the fuel. Let's just stick them in the cargo section of a plane transporting very sick children to the US. We need to get them here and jail them in a federal holding tank until we figure out how best to follow Haiti's wishes on trying them. Enough is enough.

I love the idea of a Baptist No Fly List.
Click to expand...

MissIzzy -- I think she's just a narcissistic sociopath (JMOOOC)....Whatever scheme...errr, plan she had in the works was ultimately going to benefit her in some way....like, say - Money???!!! And attention??!!

She has followers for this crazy mission....and interviews by major news outlets....just like Tammi Smith, she revels in this spotlight, can't stop spewing her lies, has roped others into complicity via their naivete, and claims to have The Man Upstairs on her side thru all of this. ugh.

Too bad she's not posting to FB or MS like Tammi does...I bet her comments would read almost identical!! It's all about *them* and their mission....they can justify anything!!

I'm sure we haven't heard the last of her destructive behavior over the past few years. Wonder if she's ruined any other lives along the way.
 
Missizzy said:
I, too, also feel a bit sorry for the young people she drug along with her. If I were their parents, I wouldn't be too pleased. Did anyone figure out why the one young woman is referred to as a nanny? Does that mean for Laura's children or for the Haitian children?
Click to expand...

She's been described as a "mother of three" in various reports (some of which I think got the info from PR pieces she'd previously put out on the internet re her company). Her 24-year-old sidekick Charisa Coulter, has repeatedly been described as her "live-in nanny" or "former live-in nanny". Coulter's father has been vociferously defending this caper and helping with it by collecting, loading up, and transporting supplies, though in today's Idaho Statesman article you linked above by, it appears he isn't quite sure where Silsby actually lives these days (she lost her house to a foreclosure or forced short sale a couple of months ago), so it sounds like Charisa may no longer be living with her. No word about the ages or locations of the 3 children, but Silsby's ex-husband is "no commenting" (very wisely, I'd say) -- perhaps they're with him.

As for the 2 teenagers (18 and 19) who are in the arrested group, each is there with one of their parents, and one is the son of a pastor of one of the two churches that's heavily involved in this mess. Nobody to blame but themselves for the mess their teenagers are in.

Hopefully Silsby will rot in a Haitian jail for a long time. As for the others, the two teens seem to have been dragged into this by their parents, and should be sent home to the US with a slap on the wrist. It's going to take some investigating to determine how much each of the other adults knew and when, about the fundamental criminal intent of this whole scheme. It appears that some or all of them may have been fully in cahoots with Silsby, or at least known that the real intent of the whole thing was profit, and trusted Silsby to manage the legal and financial details in a way that would land them all in prison.
 
Missizzy said:
I'm starting to think that Laura is more dangerous than we first thought. She's a pathological liar IMO. She knows full well that her every word is being reported. She's not stupid. How can she flip-flop the way she is, singing "Amazing Grace" (she'd better be praying for that!!). It's moving into the realm of "crazy lying", just what pathological liars do when they get caught.
Click to expand...

I guess she learned this from Brian Mitchell (Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper/rapist, who pulls this stunt every time he's hauled into court).

Missizzy said:
I'm Ms. Clinton needs to send a transport plane for this group. And let's not waste the fuel. Let's just stick them in the cargo section of a plane transporting very sick children to the US. We need to get them here and jail them in a federal holding tank until we figure out how best to follow Haiti's wishes on trying them. Enough is enough.
Click to expand...

Not with my tax dollars, please. It's not clear to me yet how many of the 8 adults (not counting the 18 and 19 year olds) in this group are willful criminals, but Silsby obviously is. She headed off to a third world country whose government and legal system is sketchy and corruption-infected at the best of times, during the aftermath of massive earthquake, with intent to commit crimes for her personal profit, and exploit helpless children in the process. The US government is doing the right thing by leaving her case in the hands of the Haitian government. If she wants to get out of the Haitian jail, maybe she can persuade some of her pals back home to send money to bribe the jail guards. Personally, I'd be happy to see her spend the rest of life there. Let the Haitian government keep her rotting in jail awaiting trial until she gets to the top of their priority list -- which should be many years down the road, considering what they've got on their plates right now.
 
LOL! Look at this snippet from an updated story in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/world/americas/05orphans.html
"Edwin Coq, a lawyer for the Baptists, said that nine of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but added that “if the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.” He appeared to be referring to Laura Silsby, who helped organize the mission to Haiti and has spoken for the Americans since they were detained last Friday. “I’m trying to get them all free but I don’t yet know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Coq said in an interview at his earthquake-damaged law offices in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince."
 
Have we seen this:

http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Silsby_Laura_569604893.aspx

"In addition to being a full time working mother, Laura gives hope to countless families around the world by providing life-changing surgeries for children in developing countries who can not afford the medical care needed to correct cleft lip or other deformities.Her non-profit organization, "Kids Changing Lives with the Gift of a Smile" raises money through contributions that teachers and students in elementary schools collect nationwide.The donations provided by the children are matched up to $50,000 by her organization therefore doubling the number of children whose lives are changed."

This info came from a now closed site:

www.femtorawards.org/businesswoman.html
 
I wonder if Laura, with all her philanthropic work, had time back in Idaho, to watch TV.....oh say, around October 15th last year? I wonder if something clicked when she saw what one family could do in the reality TV realm? She registered her New Life organization only a couple of weeks later. Hmmmm.
 
There is a section of the personalshopper web site that has the Kids Changing Lives information:

http://www.personalshopper.com/jsp/kcl/

I don't think it is her organization, her personalshopper just seems to be a conduit to it. Probably gives her some kind of tax deduction.

# Send Donation to Operation Smile: please have parents make out check to Operation Smile and note Kids Changing Lives in the memo space.

Operation Smile
Kids Changing Lives
6435 Tidewater Drive
Norfolk, VA 23509
USA

http://www.operationsmile.org/

I think it would be better for her to pay her attorneys and her employees first.
 
10 Americans in Haiti Are Charged With Abduction

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans detained after trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border last week were charged Thursday with abduction and criminal association, according to prosecutors.

The charges, which carry prison terms of up to 15 years, were announced after a closed-door court hearing in which prosecutors questioned the Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho. The case has become a flashpoint for Haiti’s fears of foreign encroachment in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake.
 
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