8 of 10 Jailed Haitians Released

The two apparent ring leaders remain in custody, and as a condition of their release, they must return later to Haiti to answer investigator questions:

While Judge Saint-Vil’s ruling allows eight of the Americans to leave Haiti on the condition that they return to the country to answer further questions in the case, it requires that Laura Silsby, the Idaho businesswoman who led the group, and her live-in nanny, Charisa Coulter, remain in jail to answer questions about traveling to Haiti before the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Some of the freed Americans had already contended this month that they were misled by Ms. Silsby, who had faced more than a dozen legal complaints connected to her online shopping business before she persuaded fellow Baptists from Idaho to assist her in setting up an orphanage for Haitian children.

“We are disappointed that all in the group are not being released,” said Terry Michaelson, a lawyer for Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, where five of the detainees, including Ms. Silsby and Ms. Coulter, attended church.

The church mission’s lawyer had put forward about $7,000 to help pay for the first month’s rent for the orphanage that Ms. Silsby planned to establish in the Dominican Republic.

…………

Some of the freed Americans had already contended this month that they were misled by Ms. Silsby, who had faced more than a dozen legal complaints connected to her online shopping business before she persuaded fellow Baptists from Idaho to assist her in setting up an orphanage for Haitian children."

(emphasis mine)

This is beginning to sound like something written by Dashiell Hammett.