A Canadian victim of Mexican corruption

Just in time for Mother's Day, Marjorie Bletcher got what she had been hoping for over the past two years – her daughter. Bletcher's daughter, Brenda Martin, was released on parole from a Kitchener prison Friday night, May 9 and returned to her mother's Trenton home.

"It feels great. Justice prevails in the end," Martin said Monday. Martin, 51, will remain on parole for the next three years and seven months. Her parole conditions stipulate that she stay within 40 kilometres of her mother's home, provide a financial statement, and not associate with convicted criminals, "Providing the statement is easy, I don't have one," Martin joked.

Martin was found guilty in April by a Mexican judge of knowingly accepting illegal funds from her former boss Alyn Waage, who ran a fraudulent investment company that scammed 15,000 investors of $60 million. Martin, who denied having any involvement in the scheme, was sentenced to five years in jail and fined $3,500 Canadian. Following her conviction, Martin was able to apply for a transfer to Corrections Canada.
Although Martin has come a long way from the Guadalajara prison where she spent the past two years and two months, she does not consider herself free. "I'm on parole and considered a convicted felon," she said. "Why does Canada have to assume the sentence passed down to me by a corrupt judicial system? It makes me confused." ...

Martin worked as a chef for Waage, but was fired in 2001. To help prove her innocence, Martin plans to start a website with the assistance of friend and supporter Debra Tieleman. An English version of her conviction will be posted on the website. "The conviction actually says there is no evidence, but I couldn't prove my innocence," Martin said.

Martin said she was never formally arrested and was told she was going to make a declaration before being thrown into the Guadalajara prison. "Basically, I was kidnapped. I wasn't arrested or handcuffed," Martin said. "I was asked for $50,000 in exchange for going to the airport."

Martin believes she was held in prison because she was one of the few left in Mexico with any connection to Waage. Waage's business associate Rebecca Roth was also arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison. "To be convicted of a crime I didn't commit in the first place is a miscarriage of justice," Martin said. "But a miscarriage of justice isn't worth the ink it is written with in Mexico. Mexico is about corruption and who you pay off."

Martin and her mother had questioned the Canadian government's response to her imprisonment, but recent efforts by Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney to bring Martin back to Canada has restored their faith. "They have redeemed themselves as far as I'm concerned," Martin said. However, Martin believes if the Canadian government would have filed an amparo, a constitutional injunction that can be filed when human rights are violated, she would have been home a long time ago. "If the government would have been there my first week of incarceration, I probably wouldn't have spent more than a month in jail," Martin said.

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