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| Brenda Martin returns to Canada | |
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| Topic Started: May 1 2008, 07:27 PM (71 Views) | |
| SpookyTheCat | May 1 2008, 07:27 PM Post #1 |
~Shortstop had me at Hi..~
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May 1, 2008 Brenda Martin returns to Canada By THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA - Brenda Martin returned to Canada on Thursday after a two-year ordeal in a Mexican prison. Martin, 51, and an escort from the Correctional Service of Canada arrived at Waterloo airport in Ontario on a flight from Mexico shortly after 6 p.m. ET. Martin's lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, said she was to be transferred to prison and will likely serve several months in jail on a fraud sentence before she's eligible for parole. Officials wouldn't say which prison Martin would be held at, but there is a womens facility in Waterloo Region. "Brenda has to go through a process. That process has to be before Correctional Service of Canada," Rico said. "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." News of Martin's transfer came as a surprise to her mother. Marjorie Bletcher said she heard of her daughter's transfer while watching television. "I can't wait to see her," she said. "I'm just going to run and hug her and tell her I love her." A Mexican judge sentenced Martin last week to five years in prison and fined her 35,800 pesos - about C$3,500 - for her alleged role in an Internet fraud scheme run by her ex-boss. Former Edmontonian Alyn Waage masterminded a fraud scheme from 1999 to 2001 called the Tri-West Investment Club, which bilked 15,000 investors out of nearly US$60 million. Martin has steadfastly maintained she knew nothing of the scam. Waage has backed her claim in a sworn affidavit. Authorities twigged to the scam and arrested Waage, now 61, at a Mexican airport. When an appeals court freed him on bail he fled to Costa Rica, where U.S. authorities apprehended him weeks later. He's now serving out a 10-year sentence at a low-security federal prison in Butner, N.C. Martin worked as Waage's personal chef at his posh Puerto Vallarta villa for 10 months until he fired her in early 2001 over disagreements with his mother. Waage told The Canadian Press last month that he paid Martin a year's severance - roughly $25,000 - because he felt bad about firing her. Martin subsequently invested $10,000 of the severance pay into Tri-West - money Waage returned to her. Martin says she thought it was a good investment and didn't know it was a fraud. Mexican authorities saw things differently. They arrested Martin in February 2006 on allegations of money laundering and participating in a criminal conspiracy connected to Waage's scheme. She was held at the Puente Grande womens prison near Guadalajara since Mexican for more than two years. The Mexican government released a statement recently claiming that her "close relationship" with Waage "for a fair length of time ... leads to the supposition that she had some knowledge of the criminal activities in which her friend was engaged." |
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2:16 AM Nov 25
