 |
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | December 2007 
Brenda Martin's Friend and Defender
 Brian Caldwell - TheRecord.com
go to original
| | Debra Tieleman of Waterloo is certain her friend Brenda Martin is innocent: "There isn't a shred of evidence against her." Now she's working on getting Martin out of the Mexican jail she's been held in since February 2006. (Peter Lee/Record) |
Debra Tieleman is on the telephone at her Cambridge office, taking another collect call from prison in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Printed prominently on the wall behind her desk is one of those motivational sayings: Life is not a dress rehearsal.
"We're going to get you out of there," she says. "We are. You just have to have faith."
On the other end of the line, crying, is an old friend named Brenda Martin.
More than 30 years ago, as teenagers sharing their first apartment in Kitchener, Tieleman and Martin were inseparable.
They split the rent, talked about boys, told each other absolutely everything.
Then they grew up, moved away and gradually drifted apart.
Martin visited once after Tieleman gave birth to her first daughter.
Every so often, one or the other would also get curious enough to make a call to play catch-up.
But by the time Tieleman suddenly thought about Martin at work one day a few months ago, 15 years had passed since the two women, once like sisters, had any contact.
"We always talked about getting together, but you work, you have a family and life kind of gets away from you," she says.
Tieleman, 52, lives in Waterloo, the mother of two grown daughters. She fusses over her new grandson and is an organizer of the annual blues festival in Kitchener.
She is also busy running Vision Global Media, a small business that sells office products including washable computer keyboards.
Tieleman doesn't know exactly what possessed her to do a Google search on her old friend.
But there was no doubt in her mind what she would do after a newspaper story popped up on her computer screen.
The article detailed how Martin, 50, had been languishing in a Mexican prison since February 2006 after getting arrested in connection with a massive internet fraud.
Whether the accusations were true or not, Tieleman decided, she was going to do everything in her power to help her.
"I wasn't thinking about guilt or innocence," she says. "I was thinking about her being totally alone in another country."
"If that were me, I would want somebody, anybody, to go to the ends of the earth to get me home. Whatever it would take, I would hope somebody would do that for me."
By then, about four months ago, the case had already attracted considerable attention because of the crime at the heart of it - a $60-million US pyramid scheme run from a Puerto Vallarta mansion.
The brains behind the scam, a former Edmonton man named Alyn Waage, was convicted in the U.S. and is serving a 10-year sentence for bilking about 15,000 investors between 1999 and 2001.
Divorced with no children, Martin had lived in Mexico for several years, mostly working in restaurants, when she was hired as a cook by Waage for $500 a week.
She got $26,000 in severance pay when she was fired after 10 months and invested some of the money in the company later linked to the scam.
After a lengthy investigation in several countries, Martin was charged with money laundering by Mexican authorities and has now spent 22 months in the maximum-security Puente Grande prison.
Convinced she is an innocent woman swept up in a sophisticated crime she knew nothing about, friends, family and politicians in Martin's hometown of Trenton - where she and Tieleman first met as kids - have been fighting for her release.
But when Tieleman finally caught wind of the effort, it seemed to be going nowhere.
She did some research, determined Martin needed better legal representation and found a Toronto lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, willing to take the case on.
Tieleman travelled to Guadalajara with Cruz Rico for the first time late last month, spending three days with Martin in the exercise yard of the prison.
They filled the time reminiscing and discussing a new legal strategy to get her out.
"It was like all the years were gone and we were the friends we had been as kids," says Tieleman. "You just have that tie with some people - it's always there."
Cruz Rico filed arguments that Martin's constitutional rights were violated when she wasn't provided with proper interpreters during interviews with police and in court proceedings.
After reviewing more than 25,000 pages of evidence - almost all of it about the main players in the pyramid scheme - he and Tieleman are also convinced Martin is innocent.
"I have no doubt - that is why we are working extra time on this case," says Cruz Rico, whose father, a prominent Mexican lawyer, is also helping.
"I think the biggest problem she has is that she was in the wrong place at the wrong moment."
Tieleman was stunned by her old friend's frailty - Martin weighed just 94 pounds - and her emotional instability.
Martin had had few previous visits, the longest lasting just 15 minutes, and thought of suicide as the months dragged on despite initially being told she would likely spend a day or two in custody.
"The stress, the worry - it's all over her face, in her eyes," says Tieleman. "I talked to her and she would just shake."
Frustrated by the language barrier and assigned only a busy public defender, she says, it was obvious Martin had little understanding of the charges against her or the process taking its sweet time to deal with them.
"Brenda has been lost in the legal system down there," says Tieleman. "There's really no question about that. Even with a cursory look at this case, you can see there isn't a shred of evidence against her."
Tieleman is perplexed why the Canadian government hasn't done more to protect her interests, especially since Waage reportedly gave a sworn statement that Martin had nothing to do with the scheme.
"I can't believe somebody wasn't all over this from our own government," she says, noting Martin is the only Canadian in the jail and there is a consulate right in Guadalajara.
Eugenie Cormier-Lassonde, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Canada, says consular officials have been in regular contact with Martin since her arrest, help her communicate with her family, raise the case with Mexican officials, are in touch with her legal advisers and are looking out for her well-being.
"We are following this case closely, but due to the Privacy Act we cannot disclose any additional information at this time," she says.
Tieleman returned to Mexico with Cruz Rico earlier this month and sat in on a preliminary hearing on the constitutional argument.
She'll go back when the case itself is heard Jan. 7, Martin's birthday.
Cruz Rico is optimistic it'll result in a dismissal of the charges, or a fresh start so Martin can mount a proper defence, but a decision isn't expected for two months or more.
Meanwhile, both he and Tieleman worry that Martin is fading - and they hope either Mexican or Canadian officials will intervene to put an end to her ordeal.
Tieleman now gets several collect calls a day from Martin, who shares a three-by-four metre dormitory with 11 women and a baby.
It's a constant struggle to keep her spirits up.
"Brenda has told me she's coming home one way or the other," says Tieleman.
"They'll either release her or she'll leave in a box."
In an interview from a pay phone outside her dorm, Martin can hardly speak for sobbing.
She insists she is innocent, alternately despondent and angry that her government hasn't done something for her by now.
"The Canadian people should be in an uproar about this," says Martin.
"I know I'm a nobody, but it could happen to them."
She calls Tieleman her "angel," but after all this time, after being beaten and robbed and threatened by other inmates, she is afraid to accept her determined friend's assurances that everything will be OK soon.
"I want to," she says. "I'm just so scared to believe it."
"I don't think I could survive another letdown."
bcaldwell(at)therecord.com
HOW TO HELP
Paul Macklin, former Liberal MP in Brenda Martin's home riding near Trenton, is leading a campaign to raise awareness of her case and ensure she gets a fair trial in Mexico.
It includes a website and a national trust fund at CIBC bank branches for donations towards Martin's legal expenses.
The website is at: SaveBrendaFund.ca |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us