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 Americas & Beyond | May 2008 
Brenda Martin Released on Full Parole
 Canwest News Service
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| | Brenda Martin talks to reporters Friday after her release on parole from Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont. (Global TV) | | |
After more than two years behind bars in Mexico, Brenda Martin walked away from a Canadian prison cell Friday on full parole.
Her lawyer, Luis Guillermo Cruz Rico, said she has been released into her mother's custody and will be staying with her at her home in Trenton, Ont.
Martin was overcome with emotion as she spoke to reporters outside the gates of the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont.
"I just want to say thank you to all the Canadians that have been behind me and supported me and my family," she said, her voice breaking.
Martin said she was "waiting all day" for news of her parole.
"And when they called us, actually, when two guards came . . . and they said, 'Brenda, your parole officer wants to see you,' I went, 'Oh my god, maybe I'm getting out.' "
When asked how she plans to spend her time, Martin said, "I'm just going to relax with my mom, and probably cook dinner for my mother and my stepfather."
The National Parole Board ordered Martin released after it concluded she was unlikely to commit a violent offence before her full sentence expires.
News of Martin's release caught her mother by surprise.
"That's news to me," a delighted Marjorie Bletcher told Canwest News Service.
"I just knew this was going to happen, but I didn't know when."
Bletcher said that, after more than two years of worry, she's looking forward to spending time alone with her daughter.
"I'm hoping now I can have a weekend with her before everyone descends on her," she said.
"I saw her last weekend, but it's not the same, spending time with her in the prison."
Mexican authorities arrested Martin in February 2006 and charged her with knowingly accepting illicit funds paid from a massive investment scam involving her former boss, Alyn Waage.
Martin worked as a chef for Waage at his Puerto Vallarta mansion for 10 months until he fired her in 2001. She insists she knew nothing of the scam - a claim Waage has backed in a sworn affidavit.
Despite angry protests from her legal counsel and supporters, and despite evidence that her legal rights may have been violated, Martin was held in a Mexican prison for more than two years without a trial.
Late last month, a Mexican judge convicted Martin and sentenced her to five years. The Canadian government - under massive public pressure due to Martin's public appeals for help - immediately set in motion a plan spearheaded by Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney to bring Martin back to Canada under an international prisoner transfer treaty.
"She's out because she deserves to be free," said Cruz Rico. "She is thrilled. This is going to be the first night of freedom in two years and two months."
"I am so happy for Brenda and her mom. Finally, they are going to be together."
Bletcher said one challenge her daughter still faces is kicking the drug habits she developed in the Mexican prison.
"She was on anti-depressants and sleeping pills, just to cope, and you can't just come off them cold turkey," she said.
"It's been very traumatic. She's never been in that kind of setting before."
The parole board placed two conditions on Martin's release. Because Martin's offence "involved criminal associates and the use of bank deposits and transfers," she must provide full financial disclosure to her parole supervisor, as requested, and she must not associate with "criminally active persons."
"You have a very limited criminal history, with no entries for offences involving violence, weapons or threats," the board decision says, referring to a 15-year-old drunk-driving conviction.
"The existence of a prior conviction (in 1993) involving the excessive use of alcohol while driving shows there has at some point been a potential for victim harm, but this conviction is both dated and isolated, and substance abuse is not currently identified as a problem area. As such, the Board does not consider that this record establishes a pattern of behaviour showing a likelihood for violence."
Although the Correctional Service of Canada requested that psychological counselling be a condition of Martin's release, "the Board is not satisfied that such a condition is reasonable and necessary to prevent a return to criminal activity in this case," says the decision. |
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