Former Haitian paramilitary leader accused of mortgage fraud in U.S.

[struggle4progress]

Former Haitian paramilitary leader accused of mortgage fraud in U.S.

The Associated Press
July 15, 2008

NEW YORK - A former Haitian paramilitary leader once widely feared in his own country was accused at trial Monday of becoming a common white-collar criminal in the United States.

Emmanuel "Toto" Constant helped hatch a mortgage fraud scheme that cheated lenders out of $1.7 million, prosecutors alleged at the trial in Brooklyn. He faces five to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree grand larceny.

South Florida's Haitian community is watching the trial closely. Constant was among 30 top military leaders convicted in absentia for the 1994 massacre at Raboteau. Despite a 1995 deportation order, Constant has been allowed to stay in the United States ...

Human rights groups allege that between 1991 and 1994, FRAPH terrorized and slaughtered slum dwellers loyal to Aristide. When Aristide returned to power in 1994, Constant slipped into the United States ...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flrndconstant0715sbjul15,0,4509750.story

Haitian death squad leader on trial in New York for mortgage fraud
By David Adams, Times Latin America Correspondent
In print: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

... Emmanuel "Toto" Constant's trial this week in New York caps a bizarre and ugly tale that doesn't reflect especially well on the United States' handling of some of Haiti's worst human rights abusers.

"Constant is a human rights violator as well as a crook, and he needs to be held accountable for all of that," said Jennie Green, a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil rights group monitoring his mortgage fraud trial which began Monday in New York ...

Despite a 1995 deportation order, Constant remained in Queens ... Constant told CBS' 60 Minutes that the CIA paid him $700 a month for political analysis ...

n 2000, a Haitian court convicted Constant, Dorelien and Valmond in absentia for their role in one of Haiti's most notorious massacres at Raboteau. Dorelien and Valmond were deported to Haiti in January 2003 and jailed. But Constant was allowed to stay and continued to live in Queens until he was arrested in 2006 on charges he bilked lenders out of $1.7-million inflating real estate deals with straw buyers ...

http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/article701368.ece

[Judi Lynn]

1. Both Bushes loved Constant. He has served them both.

Written in 2001, before _{George W. Bush} turned this monster loose again to kill lots of people he missed the first time:

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001.
The "Bush Doctrine" now guiding American policy holds that any nation which harbors terrorists becomes the enemy of the United States. In that case, the New York City borough of Queens had better brace itself for a barrage of cluster bombs — because a convicted terrorist murderer is being harbored there by a rogue government.

Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, leader of the Haitian death squad FRAPH, has been in the United States for seven years, tenderly sheltered by the CIA even after his conviction on mass murder charges. In addition to your standard rape and pillage, FRAPH is also famous for its practice of "facial scalping" — peeling the flesh from a dying victim's face with a machete.

While employing these tactics to destabilize Haiti's government during the last Bush administration, Constant was also an agent for the CIA, which used his thugs to thwart Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The populist Aristide government was overthrown in 1991, ushering in a three-year "reign of terror" by Constant and other warlords. Bush pÏre first protested, then went back to business as usual with the face-scalping killers.

In 1994, with the U.S. regime temporarily in the hands of moderate forces, Aristide was restored to office. Constant threatened to use biological weapons against U.S. troops and urged his followers to kill Americans. Despite these appeals, Constant used his CIA connections to secure safe passage to the United States. He now lives comfortably in Queens, where he dabbles in real estate, investment consulting and openly plotting to overthrow Haiti's government again.

Constant was convicted in absentia by a Haitian court last year in a trial conducted by American-trained jurists, with international supervision to ensure fairness. But despite calls for his deportation, Toto remains under the protection of American security services, which operate outside the bounds of international law. Having failed in their bid to sabotage Aristide's return in 1994, they confiscated thousands of secret documents detailing FRAPH operations — including their own cozy love letters to Toto, no doubt — then cowed the administration of wobbly moderate Bill Clinton into blocking Constant's deportation for the usual "national security" reasons.

In the last few days of his term, Mr. Wobbly recovered enough of his always-intermittent nerve to ship the secret FRAPH documents back to Haiti, in hopes of kick-starting the extradition process. But the new Bush regime is openly hostile to Aristide, and most expect the U.S. security services to put up a stiff fight to protect their "honored guest." In fact, with his old Bush contacts riding high again, Constant is already picking out curtains for Haiti's presidential palace.

http://www.geocities.com/thedivine_comedy/nov/bush_dictator.html

Getting someone this openly dirty in office has brought all the muck and filth right to the surface, in full view. God only knows if we will ever be free of these mega-criminals in "high" places.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Update: Former Haiti paramilitary leader takes stand at N.Y. trial

Former Haiti paramilitary leader takes stand at N.Y. trial
Posted on Wed, Jul. 23, 2008
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Civil rights groups claim he was a killer in Haiti but when Emmanuel ''Toto'' Constant took the witness stand Wednesday, it was to challenge a more mundane label: real estate swindler.

The former Haitian paramilitary leader, testifying in his own defense at a mortgage fraud trial in Brooklyn, denied charges he was a key player in various mortgage fraud schemes that cheated lenders out of $1.7 million.

When asked by his lawyer if one home deal called shady by prosecutors was actually legitimate, Constant answered, ``Absolutely.''

Constant, 51, faces five to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree grand larceny.

The son of a military officer, Constant emerged as the notorious leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, or FRAPH, after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was toppled in 1991.

Human rights groups allege that between 1991 and 1994, FRAPH terrorized and slaughtered slum-dwellers loyal to Aristide. When Aristide returned to power in 1994, Constant slipped into the United States.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/615398.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Closing Arguments To Begin In Trial of "Toto" Constant, Notorious Haitian Death Squad Leader

NEW YORK - July 24 - Today at 1:45pm closing arguments are set to begin in Haitian former paramilitary leader Emmanuel “Toto” Constant’s trial for grand larceny and mortgage fraud in New York’s Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

According to the U.S. State Department’s own reports, as the leader of the paramilitary group, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Constant was responsible for murder, rape, and other torture of thousands of Haitians in the early 1990’s. Activists say that while Constant’s trial for mortgage fraud is not directly linked to his sordid history as a human rights abuser, the trial is an opportunity for Constant to be held publicly accountable for his economic crimes against the people of New York. Last spring, after receiving information from Haitian and U.S. human rights attorneys and activists about Constant’s violent leadership of FRAPH, the judge presiding in the case set aside a plea bargain deal over the objections of the Department of Homeland Security, which was urging Constant’s immediate deportation to Haiti.

Constant fled Haiti to the U.S. in 1994 when a Haitian court issued a warrant for his arrest for murder and torture. From 1996 until his arrest for mortgage fraud in 2006, Constant lived freely in Queens, despite international outcry and extradition requests from Haiti for his crimes against humanity. In 2006, a U.S. federal court issued a $19 million default judgment in a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf of three women subjected to gang rape and attempted extrajudicial killing.

WHAT Closing arguments in the trial of Emmanuel “Toto” Constant for Mortgage Fraud ...

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0724-04.htm

[Judi Lynn]

4. Oh, please! Who would NOT see through THIS?

From the article:

....Department of Homeland Security, which was urging Constant’s immediate deportation to Haiti.

Do you imagine they're in a big hurry to get this bozo out of here before the sordid, vicious news of his past association with the Republicans finally gets aired well enough people pay attention to it, after all these years of a total news blackout on what they did to Haitians?

Reminds you of the sudden arrival of all those paramilitaries (death squad narcotraffickers) who were produced from out of nowhere to stand trial for drug trafficking in the U.S.

This happened within WEEKS of the appearance on CBS's "60 Minutes" by Salvatore Mancuso, who, in his interview with Steve Kroft (I believe it was Kroft, not positive) was asked if, while he was sitting in jail in Colombia (after he named so many Colombian politicians with ties to the death squads) he was ever contacted by the _Bush Justice Department to give them the names of American companies which were involved with the death squads.

He said he had not heard a PEEP from the Justice Department, not a phone call, not a greeting card, not an e-mail. Nada. He said they plain weren't interested in doing anything about dirty American multinationals who were connected to the death squads.

Suddenly, BADDA BING, guess who's in the U.S., slammed deeply into the U.S. prison system!

Citizens in Colombia whose relatives were slaughtered in the massacres by death squads protested as loudly as they felt safe in protesting, saying now these drug war lords were gone, they couldn't be held accountable for all the massacres of innocent civilians in all those villages in Colombia, and the murders would never be punished.

In Constant's case, if _Bush can catapault him back to Haiti, the evil he and Guy Phillippe, etc. have done for the International Republican Institute, and for _{Bush #41} and for _{Bush #43} will so gone it will seem to have never happened.