Brenda Martin

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by FFR

So according to her boss (who was convicted of fraud) and herself, she is innocent. Of course someone who doesn't want to be in prison is going to say she's innocent. And as other people on here have mentioned, a testimony from someone convicted of fraud isn't worth too much. Your article there doesn't mention the whole story. I also believe she invested money with her boss in some sort of scheme.

Unless there is some other information you have that I haven't come across, thats the only information we have to work with.

[4X4]

I kinda think that she got into it unknowingly. When she found out what she was in, wanted to cash out and wash her hands of it, but it was too late.
I guess I just have a hard time with these stories of someone being totally innocent and the system arbitrarily screwing them. Like as though any penal system wants more people clogging it up.

[FFR]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Unless there is some other information you have that I haven't come across, thats the only information we have to work with.

Right. And I would assume that there is a lot more that the public isn't being told. Whether that other information proves her innocent or guilty, who knows. But we don't know it. Unfortuantely in Mexico you are guilty until proven innocent and she couldn't prove her innocence.

It has been said that she invested some of her severence package back into his company (which was where the fraud was occuring). I wouldn't take everything the media says at face value. Its not like a media outlet is going to slam a Canadian whos stuck in jail in Mexico. This is a sob story and of course they are going to play it up. It's called bias.

[fredr123]

http://ualbertalaw.typepad.com/facul...-martin-o.html

U of Alberta law professor Russ Brown weighs in on his blog:

Quite aside from the obvious quick answers to each of these messages [(1) lack of direct evidence does not preclude conviction, (2) Mr. Waage is a fraud, so why believe him now?, and (3) two years does not seem like such a long time in a commercial fraud case], what interests me is the overall implication that Ms. Martin cannot be guilty, because she, her friends and her mother say she is not guilty.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by FFR

Right. And I would assume that there is a lot more that the public isn't being told. Whether that other information proves her innocent or guilty, who knows. But we don't know it. Unfortuantely in Mexico you are guilty until proven innocent and she couldn't prove her innocence.

It has been said that she invested some of her severence package back into his company (which was where the fraud was occuring). I wouldn't take everything the media says at face value. Its not like a media outlet is going to slam a Canadian whos stuck in jail in Mexico. This is a sob story and of course they are going to play it up. It's called bias.

True... perhaps there is a little more... I'm more with 4x4 that if she got into something unknowingly (I never heard of the part where she invested money back into the company, and I don't know the rules against it - wouldn't it be a limited shareholder?)

[CaptainCrunch]

She fell under suspicion when she invested her money in to the scheme and then asked for and got the money back whereas nobody else that was invested got their money back.

To me that screams more then a chef.

Yes she had to stay in a mexican jail for two years without a trail, but is that so unusual when she would be considered a massive flight risk, in a country with easy exit strategies pinned up in every public rest room.

And there's nothing showing that there was any corruption surrounding her case or the trail.

[old-fart]

Bottom line - if you go to another country, you have to live by their laws and their customs. If you don't like their laws and customs, don't go there. Seems pretty simple to me. If you think Mexico is a corrupt haven waiting to pick up random people off the street and charge them with fraud, then don't go to Mexico.

What you can't do, is go to Mexico and when things aren't going your way with the legal system, bitch whine and moan to have the Canadian government come and save your butt. She approached the Canadian government and was told they would help. The provided a list of lawyers they would recommend. She rejected them all and picked someone else, who completely f'd up the case ensuring it would drag on longer and longer. Then she whines that the government didn't help her.

The government also suggested that they would/could work with the Mexican government to have her transferred to a Canadian prison and yet again she refused. She wanted to be sent back to Canada and freed, regardless of anything she may have done. She's also lied about the contact she has had with the Canadian Consulate, then whined when proven to be a liar. She's lied about the conditions of the prison she is and her treatment.

Why would anyone believe anything this woman says?

[Burninator]

Well this "not committing crime in another country" jive is really going to put a hamper on my trip to Mexico in two weeks. How I am suppose to have fun?

[FFR]

Brenda Martin is apparently on a plane and heading back to Canada as reported by CTV.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories

After spending more than two years in a Mexican prison, Brenda Martin is on a plane and heading back to Canada, CTV News has learned. She may land in Canada by 6:30 p.m. EST.
CTV's National Affairs correspondent Lisa LaFlamme says she has received a report that an inmate in Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara -- where Martin was being held -- says she has been sent back to Canada.

[BavarianHorde]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/...in-return.html

Here is another site (CBC) with the same story. She is coming home.

Brenda Martin, a Canadian woman who spent more than two years in a Mexican jail, has returned to Canada.
Brenda Martin has spent the last 26 months in a Mexican prison. (Paul Hunter/CBC)Martin, from Trenton, Ont., had been working in Mexico and was found guilty last week of money laundering by a Mexican judge. She had been in a Guadalajara-area jail since 2006, with the past few months spent sedated and on suicide watch.
A private jet carrying Martin touched down at the Waterloo regional airport in southern Ontario shortly before 6 p.m. ET, the CBC's Ron Charles reported. Accompanied by Canadian officials, Martin was loaded into a Corrections Service of Canada van and taken to a local women's prison.
Her lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, said Martin will be eligible for parole and could be free in a couple of months.
“Brenda has to go through a process," Rico said. "That process has to be before Correctional Service of Canada.
"At some point, she's going to be able to apply for parole as well. That has to be before the parole board. At some point, we're going to find out if Brenda would be able to get free in a couple of months."
Martin can apply for parole immediately upon arrival at a Canadian facility, as she has already served one-third of her sentence, counting time served before the verdict, the CBC's Paul Hunter reported.
Martin's 69-year-old mother, Marjorie Bletcher, told CBC News on Thursday that she hopes her daughter will receive psychiatric care as soon as possible because of the toll her incarceration has taken on her.
“It’s been a horrific 2.2 years for her,” Bletcher said.

[BavarianHorde]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl..._gam_mostemail

she is in Kitchener now.

[burn_this_city]

Why would a guy pay someone top wage in Mexico to be his chef even though she had no prior experience? You could get a work class chef in mexico for $50 a day. Why fire someone after 10 months and give them $28,000? Then after she was fired she re-invested $10,000 with him. She hasnt lived in Canada in 10 years, and hasnt paid a dime of tax in Mexico during that time. Frankly I think they should have left her there. Too bad the crocodile tears on national tv brought out the bleeding hearts.

[Morozee]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why would a guy pay someone top wage in Mexico to be his chef even though she had no prior experience? You could get a work class chef in mexico for $50 a day. Why fire someone after 10 months and give them $28,000? Then after she was fired she re-invested $10,000 with him. She hasnt lived in Canada in 10 years, and hasnt paid a dime of tax in Mexico during that time. Frankly I think they should have left her there. Too bad the crocodile tears on national tv brought out the bleeding hearts.

Something sure doesn't seem to add up there... however, I still don't think it exuses the fact she was incarcerated for over 2 years with no trial.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why would a guy pay someone top wage in Mexico to be his chef even though she had no prior experience? You could get a work class chef in mexico for $50 a day. Why fire someone after 10 months and give them $28,000? Then after she was fired she re-invested $10,000 with him. She hasnt lived in Canada in 10 years, and hasnt paid a dime of tax in Mexico during that time. Frankly I think they should have left her there. Too bad the crocodile tears on national tv brought out the bleeding hearts.

Speculation aside...

One of the basic tenets to human rights is the conception of innocence until proof of guilt. There is no proof anywhere that Ms Martin was involved in anything illegal. What there is proof of is gross incompetence on the part of Mexico's justice system.

Whether or not you *think* she's guilty does not change facts. I would be ashamed to be Canadian if our government had adopted your opinion on the matter.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by llama64

Speculation aside...

One of the basic tenets to human rights is the conception of innocence until proof of guilt. There is no proof anywhere that Ms Martin was involved in anything illegal. What there is proof of is gross incompetence on the part of Mexico's justice system.

Whether or not you *think* she's guilty does not change facts. I would be ashamed to be Canadian if our government had adopted your opinion on the matter.

Agreed!

Under the Mexican justice system your are guilty until proven innocent. She also spent 2 years in a prison without a trial.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by llama64

Speculation aside...

One of the basic tenets to human rights is the conception of innocence until proof of guilt. There is no proof anywhere that Ms Martin was involved in anything illegal. What there is proof of is gross incompetence on the part of Mexico's justice system.

Whether or not you *think* she's guilty does not change facts. I would be ashamed to be Canadian if our government had adopted your opinion on the matter.

Its not speculation, that was the evidence provided by the Mexican authorities following her conviction. There was more than enough circumstantial evidence in that case to convict her. Too bad its not like Canada where she could walk free on some technicality. I fail to see why we think Canadian justice should apply to our citizens who break the laws in other countries. Plenty of people spend a year or more in Canadian jails awaiting trial. It was a complete waste of money spiriting her out of Mexican jail on a goverment jet.

[Dion]

[quote=burn_this_city;1308754]Its not speculation, that was the evidence provided by the Mexican authorities following her conviction. There was more than enough circumstantial evidence in that case to convict her.[/youtube]

You have links to this?

I'd like to see that evidence.

[burn_this_city]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/me...-timeline.html

I was mistaken about her having no prior cooking experience. She had been working in Mexico without a work visa as a cook since 98, he hired her two years later. Its the whole investing of severance money that leads me to believe she knew. He also phoned her from Mexican jail to tell her he'd give her money back.

[Dion]

Amnesty says it has evidence of Mexicans being tortured into confessing to crimes they didn't commit. In a scathing assessment of the justice system here, Amnesty claims that those with money get better treatment than those who don't have any. And that women and indigenous Mexicans get treated worse than everyone else.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromab.../20080318.html

Yet we're supposed to have complete faith in that the justice system was fair with Brenda.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromab.../20080318.html

Yet we're supposed to have complete faith in that the justice system was fair with Brenda.

In the same breath are we supposed to believe everything she has said?

I realize their justice system isnt the best, but people going down there for work know that. If your going to be involved with the wrong people you need to realize they may take you down with them. Playing dumb shouldnt be a get out of jail free card.