| | |  Americas & Beyond | December 2008 
Brenda Martin: Intelligencer's Newsmaker of the Year
 Chris Malette - The Intelligencer
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| | Brenda Martin | |
Brenda Martin's face, the gaunt image that stared forlornly at readers of dozens of Canadian newspapers earlier this year, is The Intelligencer's Newsmaker of the Year for 2008.
Martin, who won her freedom from a Mexican jail after persistent coverage by our own W. Brice McVicar and an Edmonton Journal reporter, who broke the story of her incarceration in Mexico, was undoubtedly the single most prominent Quinte person in the news over the past year.
National media picked up the story, the television networks got the scent and did their own coverage and the Stephen Harper government was compelled to act.
Martin, from Trenton, spent more than two years in a Mexican prison for her alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme. In April, Martin was sentenced to five years in prison by the Mexican judicial system for knowingly accepting illicit funds.
The guilty verdict and the sentence created a media frenzy and Canada's federal government immediately began discussions to have Martin transferred from Mexico to a Canadian prison. After a week in a Kitchener minimum security facility, Martin was released on parole.
She may not be the most sympathetic character — she managed to offend many who supported her when she moved out of Trenton, last summer, saying there was nothing there for her. She has since moved back from several weeks in Kitchener, where she'd hoped to find work, and remains close to her supportive mother.
Admire her for her pluck, deride her for having commanded so much of our attention and sympathy — however much or little we believed she deserved it — Brenda Martin was undeniably the biggest single news-making person of the year in Quinte Country, Canada. |
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