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Archives > Volume 8 Issue 12 - February 12, 2010 Legal advisor for Baptists in Haiti now target of human trafficking probe...The police in El Salvador have begun an investigation into whether a man suspected of leading a trafficking ring involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls is also a legal adviser to many of the Americans charged with trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission. New York Times news story here 
When the judge presiding over the Haitian case learned on Thursday of the investigation in El Salvador, he said he would begin his own inquiry of the adviser, a Dominican man who was in the judge's chambers days before.
The inquiries are the latest twist in a politically charged case that is unfolding in the middle of an earthquake disaster zone. A lawyer for the group has already been dismissed after being accused of trying to offer bribes to get the 10 Americans out of jail. The head of the Salvadoran border police, Commissioner Jorge Callejas, said in a telephone interview that he was investigating accusations that a man with a Dominican passport that identified him as Jorge Anibal Torres Puello led a human trafficking ring that recruited Dominican women and under-age Nicaraguan girls by offering them jobs and then putting them to work as prostitutes in El Salvador. Mr. Puello said he did not even have a passport. When Mr. Callejas was shown a photograph taken in Haiti of Mr. Puello, Mr. Callejas said he thought it showed the man he was seeking. He said he would try to arrest Mr. Puello on suspicion of luring women into prostitution and taking explicit photographs of them that were then posted on Internet sites. "It's him, the same beard and face," Mr. Callejas said in an interview on Thursday. "It has to be him." Judge Saint-Vil also said he thought that the photo of the trafficking suspect in a Salvadoran police file appeared to be the same man he had met in court. He said he intended to begin his own investigation into whether a trafficking suspect had been working with the Americans detained in Haiti. "I was skeptical of him because he arrived with four bodyguards, and I have never seen that from a lawyer," the judge said in an interview. "I plan to get to the bottom of this right away." Meanwhile, Bernard Saint-Vil, the Haitian judge who has the final word on whether to free the Americans, said the group should be released from jail while the investigation into kidnapping charges continues. Idaho Statesman story here Saint-Vil, however, gave the prosecutor the opportunity to object. The judge said he delivered his recommendation Thursday to prosecutor Josephe Mannes Louis. Louis said he would respond next week. Haitian government offices are closed Friday for a national day of mourning. It is unclear when the Baptists, eight of them associated with congregations in Meridian and Twin Falls, might be released. Saint-Vil said it was too early to say whether they would be able to leave the country if granted provisional freedom. Central Valley Baptist Church pastor Clint Henry said church members and relatives are encouraged by reports that the Americans could soon be released. But the Meridian congregation is waiting and praying for official confirmation. "Let's get our people home and let's do it soon," Henry said during a Thursday afternoon news conference. Finally, the head of UNICEF warned Tuesday that people may still be trying to smuggle children out of Haiti and said protecting youngsters who survived the earthquake is the top concern of the U.N. children's agency. AP News story here Ann Veneman said in an interview with The Associated Press that UNICEF is starting a program to identify children who lost or can't find their parents. The group is also working with other groups to put children who are alone into facilities where they can receive food, water and psychological help, she said. "This is a children's emergency," she said. Veneman, who visited Haiti last week, said in every humanitarian crisis there's a risk that children will be trafficked out of the country for sexual exploitation, adoption, child labor or other illegal purposes. In Haiti, she said, "this is a big concern." Seattle security guards watch 15-year-old girl get beaten... Three unarmed security guards were following orders last month when they stood by without intervening as a 15-year-old girl was badly beaten in a downtown Seattle bus tunnel. Now the company they work for and government officials say those orders should be revised. MSNBC story here 
The guards' actions during the brutal attack - captured on surveillance video - prompted an outcry from Metro Transit and King County authorities, who said they wished the guards had broken up the fight even though they're not supposed to.
"We are very disappointed in what people see in that video," said Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond. "It was absolutely unacceptable." Police arrived minutes after the attack, and after the group had fled. Investigators tracked down four, including the alleged attacker, and arrested them on Friday and Saturday. The four were all charged with first-degree robbery. In court papers filed against the teen girl accused of attacking the 15-year-old and the three young men accused of stealing her purse, phone and iPod, the victim told authorities she thought the security guards would protect her. NBC video story here In other news... 
Substantial changes are in the offing for the "psychiatrist's bible," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, according to a draft of the forthcoming fifth edition. ABC News story here The American Psychiatric Association (APA) posted the draft of DSM-V on a special Web site, www.dsm5.org, to obtain comment from its members, other members of the mental health community, and the public. The APA will accept comments through April 20. The work groups managing the revision will consider them and make further changes as needed to the draft, said Dr. David Kupfer, of the University of Pittsburgh and chairman of the DSM-V task force. The draft diagnostic criteria will then undergo two years of field testing. The final DSM-V is scheduled for release in May 2013, a year later than originally planned.
Investigators searching for a missing 8-month-old boy began an intensive excavation and search effort at a Texas landfill. CNN story here "Let me say this, that we do remain hopeful that baby Gabriel is alive," William McManus, chief of the San Antonio Police Department, said at a news conference at the landfill. "We are, however, conducting both a missing persons investigation as well as a homicide investigation," he said, adding that aspects surrounding Gabriel Johnson's disappearance involve elements of a possible homicide. Gabriel has been missing since December 26 and was last seen in San Antonio, with his 23-year-old mother, Elizabeth Johnson, who has refused to disclose information on his whereabouts. She told Gabriel's father she killed the boy and has also said she gave him away to a couple in San Antonio, police say. Johnson drove Gabriel to San Antonio from Tempe, Arizona, and she went to Florida a week later, according to investigators. Johnson was arrested in Florida and extradited to Maricopa County, Arizona, where she remains behind bars, charged with kidnapping, custodial interference and child abuse. For more on this story, see vol8_iss2, vol8_iss3, vol8_iss4, vol8_iss10, and vol8_iss11.
A malnourished Phoenix girl was locked in a bathroom without running water for two months, beaten with metal rods, and forced to exercise until exhaustion because her father said she had stolen food and cheated on a home-school test, police said Wednesday. ABC News story here Scott and Andrea Bass, the 14-year-old girl's father and stepmother, were arrested February 4 for investigation of child abuse, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. "No one on this earth needs to be treated the way this child was treated," Phoenix police Officer Luis Samudio said. The girl escaped from the bathroom through the attic on February 4 and rode her bike to a nearby movie theater, where a concerned couple gave her $50. She then rode about 13 miles to a Phoenix strip mall and bought water, food, a backpack and clothes because she hadn't been allowed to change for weeks, Samudio said. The girl then rode to a coffee shop in Scottsdale, where she asked an employee to call police. Inside the bathroom, police found a 5-gallon bucket containing human waste and a blanket on the floor that served as the girl's bed, according to a probable-cause statement.
YouTube is enabling parents to block videos flagged as inappropriate for young teens. CBS story here Still, with millions of videos on YouTube, the filtering will be a challenge, admits Scott Rubin, who heads child safety policy for YouTube. "It's a formidable job," Rubin says. "With 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, we really count on our community members ... to know our community guidelines, those rules of the road, to flag videos they think violate the rules." Type in the word sex on YouTube, and you'll get millions of hits, Wallace points out, including countless provocative and violent videos. That concerns parents such as Marsali Hancock, whose 14-year-old daughter, Rachel Hancock, spends at least two hours a day - sometimes as many as five - on YouTube. "What I don't want coming into my home is the sexual content and the violence; those two are really - they're just unhealthy." Marsali, the president of Internet safety advocacy group iKeepSafe.org, was one of several parents who started complaining to YouTube nearly two years ago, urging the company to do more to keep teens from seeing sexually explicit, violent and other dangerous content, such as a video promoting anorexia, while still enabling them to enjoy the site.
New court documents give an eerie glimpse of Jaycee Dugard's 18 years in captivity at the hands of alleged kidnappers, with diary entries by her painting a picture of growing despair. MSNBC story here "It feels like I'm sinking. I'm afraid I want control of my life ... this is supposed to be my life to do with what I like ... but once again he has taken it away, Dugard writes in a July 5, 2004, entry. "How many times is he allowed to take it away from me? I'm afraid he doesn't see how the things he says makes me a prisoner." The journal entries are included in court documents filed Thursday by the El Dorado County district attorney to oppose a motion by Phillip Garrido's lawyer for information on the current whereabouts of Dugard, who is in seclusion. Dugard was abducted from the street where she lived in South Lake Tahoe, California on June 10, 1991, when she was 11 years old. Prosecutors allege Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, kept the girl in their hidden backyard compound, where she was sexually assaulted and imprisoned for the next 18 years. Garrido allegedly fathered two children by Dugard during her ordeal. Dugard, now, 29, was found by police in late August. She and her children have been staying at a secret location, and prosecutors say she does not want any further contact from the Garridos.
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