El Salvador Investigates Adviser to Detained Americans in Haiti


By MARC LACEY and IAN URBINA
Published: February 11, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — 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.

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Jorge Puello, who has been providing legal advice to a group of Americans jailed in Haiti.
In Idaho, Questions on How Aid Mission Went Awry (February 6, 2010)


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 adviser, Jorge Puello, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had not engaged in any illegal activity in El Salvador and that he had never been in the country. He called it a case of mistaken identity. “I don’t have anything to do with El Salvador,” he said, suggesting that his name was as common in Latin America as John Smith is in the United States.

“There’s a Colombian drug dealer who was arrested with 25 IDs, and one of them had my name,” he said, not elaborating.

“Bring the proof,” he said when pressed about the child-trafficking accusations in the brief interview, which ended when he said he was entering an elevator. Reached later, he became angry and said he had broken no laws.

The 10 Americans have been imprisoned since Jan. 29 in the back of the same police station used by President René Préval as the seat of Haiti’s government since the earthquake. They had been told by their lawyers that at least some of them would be on their way home on Thursday. But the judge overseeing their case, Bernard Saint-Vil, recommended to the prosecutor that they be tentatively released from custody and permitted to leave the country as long as a representative stayed behind until the case was completed.

Mr. Puello has been acting as a spokesman and legal adviser for most of the detainees in the Dominican Republic. The family of one of the detained Americans obtained independent counsel as of Feb 7.

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.”

The judge said he would request assistance from the Department of Homeland Security to look into Mr. Puello’s background. A spokesman for the department said American officials were playing a supporting role in the investigation surrounding the Americans, providing “investigative support as requested.”

An Interpol arrest warrant has been issued for someone named Jorge Anibal Torres Puello, according to the police and public documents.

There were questions about whether Mr. Puello, the adviser, who said the Central Valley Baptist Church in Idaho had hired him to represent the Americans, was licensed to practice law. Records at the College of Lawyers in the Dominican Republic listed no one with his name.

Mr. Puello said he had a law license and was part of a 45-member law firm. But his office in Santo Domingo turned out to be a humble place, which could not possibly fit 45 lawyers. Mr. Puello’s brother Alejandro said that the firm had another office in the central business district, but he declined to provide an address.

Mr. Puello said in the interview that he had been representing the Americans free of charge because he was a religious man who commiserated with their situation. “I’m president of the Sephardic Jewish community in the Dominican Republic,” he said. “I help people in this kind of situation. We’re not going to charge these people a dime.”

But other lawyers for the detainees said that the families had wired Mr. Puello $12,000 to pay for the Americans’ transportation out of Haiti if they were released, and that they had been told by Mr. Puello in a conference call late Tuesday that he needed an additional $36,000. Mr. Puello said that he had not participated in a conference call.

One lawyer for the families said that Mr. Puello had told him that he was licensed to practice law in Florida, but the lawyer said he had checked and found no such record. Mr. Puello said in the interview that he had never said he was licensed in Florida.

Mr. Puello said that he had been born in Yonkers, N.Y., and that his mother was Dominican. He said that his full name was Jorge Puello and that he had no other names. But then in a subsequent interview he said his name was Jorge Aaron Bentath Puello. He said he was born in October 1976, and not in October 1977, which the police report indicates is the birth date of the suspect in the Salvadoran case.

The report said the police had found documents connected to the Sephardic Jewish community in a house in San Salvador where the traffickers had held women.

Blake Schmidt contributed reporting from San José, Costa Rica, and Jean-Michel Caroit from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

This slime ball who claimed was a "lawyer" said he was representing the 10 Americans from the Baptist Christian group, who where caught trying to take the Haitian kids into the DR. In another article the Dominican consul Carlos Castillo, said that he warned the group about trying to enter the Dominican government without the authorization of the Haitian authorities, but they did not listen.
The Haitian consul general, from DR, Carlos Castillo is the son of retired general Carlos Castillo Sr. recently diseased, who are one of the largest exporters and growers of avocados in the DR.
As I said from the start this whole thing seemed very fishy to me, and now this slimeball emerges, with a long background in child trafficking and prostitution, trying to bribe the culprits out of Haitian jail.

the so called non sleeping culprits were also taken in by slimeball

Y asi grinpí y pepe querian darle el beneficio de la duda , solo porque eran blancos!!! 'su santísima !!!

No hay arbol lo suficiente alto para colgar los que esten involucrados en este tipo de trafico humano !!

The whole lot are crooked and slimeballs. People in the baby trafficking business deserve long sentences. As I said before if they really wanted to help the children of Haiti they should have done the decent thing and given money or goods to the Red Cross or similar organization.
S.

Radio Metropole from Haiti announced that the Haitian judge authorized that the accused be let out of jail. The judge's decision is pending another ruling by the DA's office.

I suppose the US said they would invade if they didn't let the criminals out.
S.

Gen:

Y ese escudo ?? que es?

Es de "La Hermandad".

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Two days after a group of 10 Americans were taken into custody in Haiti last month, a man who has emerged as a suspect in a sex trafficking ring and who has an array of other legal charges against him called up the Idaho church where 5 of them attend, portraying himself as an attorney who could help free the group at no cost, interviews show.
After failing to contact any of the approved lawyers provided by the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince, two relatives of the detained Americans returned the call from the man, Jorge Puello, which came in during Sunday services on Jan. 31, and agreed for him to help on a pro-bono basis, said Terry Michaelson, an attorney for the church, the Central Valley Baptist Church.

It was only later that relatives learned that Mr. Puello — who spoke to the media on behalf of the jailed Americans, fired a Haitian attorney who was representing them and visited the Haitian judge handling the case — lacked a law license and is being sought by law enforcement agencies in El Salvador and the United States, Mr. Michaelson said.

Mr. Puello has dropped out of sight since questions were raised about his background. His cousin, Alejandro Puello, said Saturday he was missing, and calls to Mr. Puello’s cellphone were not answered. A Web site that described Mr. Puello and his cousin as law partners, which Alejandro Puello said was false, was taken down on Friday.

The Salvadoran police say they want to question Mr. Puello in connection with a sex trafficking ring broken up last year in which women and girls from Central America and the Caribbean were lured into prostitution through offers of modeling jobs. The suspect is named Jorge Anibal Torres Puello.

But Mr. Puello, who has denied he is that man, said Thursday that he was the president the Sephardic Jewish Community in the Dominican Republic. Public records indicate that in 2007 that organization was registered to Jorge Anibal Torres Puello.

Police records and court documents in the United States also say that a person with the same name and birth date is considered a fugitive and is wanted by the Miami police, United States Customs and the United States Marshals Service. The name and birth date are also the same as the man being pursued in El Salvador and for whom Interpol has transmitted an arrest warrant.

An order is listed in the United States national crime database for a man with that name and birth date to be arrested on sight and reported to United States immigration officials. Those records say he is wanted in connection with crimes including bank fraud in the United States and Canada, and theft of American government property. Police records say he has violated parole.

When asked Thursday to explain whether he was tied to the sex trafficking ring, Mr. Puello said, “I don’t have to answer any questions from you people.”
After failing to contact any of the approved lawyers provided by the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince, two relatives of the detained Americans returned the call from the man, Jorge Puello, which came in during Sunday services on Jan. 31, and agreed for him to help on a pro-bono basis, said Terry Michaelson, an attorney for the church, the Central Valley Baptist Church.

It was only later that relatives learned that Mr. Puello — who spoke to the media on behalf of the jailed Americans, fired a Haitian attorney who was representing them and visited the Haitian judge handling the case — lacked a law license and is being sought by law enforcement agencies in El Salvador and the United States, Mr. Michaelson said.

Mr. Puello has dropped out of sight since questions were raised about his background. His cousin, Alejandro Puello, said Saturday he was missing, and calls to Mr. Puello’s cellphone were not answered. A Web site that described Mr. Puello and his cousin as law partners, which Alejandro Puello said was false, was taken down on Friday.

The Salvadoran police say they want to question Mr. Puello in connection with a sex trafficking ring broken up last year in which women and girls from Central America and the Caribbean were lured into prostitution through offers of modeling jobs. The suspect is named Jorge Anibal Torres Puello.

But Mr. Puello, who has denied he is that man, said Thursday that he was the president the Sephardic Jewish Community in the Dominican Republic. Public records indicate that in 2007 that organization was registered to Jorge Anibal Torres Puello.

Police records and court documents in the United States also say that a person with the same name and birth date is considered a fugitive and is wanted by the Miami police, United States Customs and the United States Marshals Service. The name and birth date are also the same as the man being pursued in El Salvador and for whom Interpol has transmitted an arrest warrant.

An order is listed in the United States national crime database for a man with that name and birth date to be arrested on sight and reported to United States immigration officials. Those records say he is wanted in connection with crimes including bank fraud in the United States and Canada, and theft of American government property. Police records say he has violated parole.

When asked Thursday to explain whether he was tied to the sex trafficking ring, Mr. Puello said, “I don’t have to answer any questions from you people.” ..............{ Well it appears the christian toothless rednecked honky crackers were innocent after all ---I suppose you haters are disappointed