This entry is cross posted with all my other Haiti work from my Haiti Resource page, End Child Exportation and Trafficking in Haiti.
Oh oh! You know you’re in trouble when your own lawyer dumps you!
The Idaho Statesman reports today that on Monday Gerald T. Husch, Silsby’s lawyer back in Boise who has been representing her and Personal Shopper.com in a civil suit filed by a former unpaid employee, has filed a motion to withdraw as counsel.
Husch has refused to comment on the move.
I imagine a lot of straws have been piling up on that camel’s back. Perhaps the delusional statement to the AP yesterday (see previous entry) from his morally and probably financially bankrupt client that she wants to return to Haiti and DR to collect more kids and build her orphanage while her stiffed creditors line up at court and the poorhouse, was the last one.
I know that as an officer of the court Husch (or somebody) has a fiduciary duty to defend even the most reprehensible, but how, with Silsby’s finances tossed on the rocks, can there even be a defense at this point except to throw her on the mercy of the court and the kindness of her creditors and former employees?
It appears Silsby is indigent and near homeless. Missionaries of the Vodou persuasion from Haiti should come up to Meridian and take her kids off the street and and put them in an orphanage (with a swimming pool) where they can be adopted out and placed in a good homes in Haiti–or shipped off to India or Brazil.
According to records found in the Idaho Repository, Silsby is scheduled for three court hearings this month. something she just cant fiddle-dee-dee away, as much as the voices in her head tell her she can:
March 15, 2010:
Silsby v Silsby (Case #CV-DR-2004-01902) Status hearing in contested child custody case
March 24, 2010:
Bryan A Jack v Personal Shopper, Inc (Case #C2010-01997) Small Claims
Robin Oliver v Personal Shopper, Inc (Case #CV-OC-2009-07234) Back Wages
Husch is Silsby’s attorney of record in the Oliver case, and his motion for leave will be heard on the 24h.
This new episode in the Silsby Saga again brings up the question: who is paying for Silsby’s defense in Haiti? Surely, nobody would believe your check is i the mail.”
I’m having real problems right now articulating the total disgust I feel for this sociopath for God, her churchy associates and friends on so many levels. I thank my commenters on yesterday’s entry (on the Daily Bastardette) for articulating these feelings for me.
“Missionaries of the Vodou persuasion from Haiti should come up to Meridian and take her kids off the street and and put them in an orphanage (with a swimming pool) where they can be adopted out and placed in a good homes in Haiti–or shipped off to India or Brazil.”
LOL, Marley, I think that is a wonderful idea. Isn’t Christianity the only religion that has missionaries with the mandate to convert those to whom they give “help?”
For me, the fact the courts took her own children’s passports away at the last hearing indicates how little faith the system puts in her responsibility or her likelihood of showing back up in court. Amazing to think she has custody hearings for her own children that she won’t be attending, but wishes to take responsibility for “as many orphans as possible” in Haiti. Incredible.
Yesterdays news about her intending to continue with her charade of an orphanage just blew my mind. She is not going to be received very warmly back here in Idaho, except by her church and fellow co-conspirators.
Reprehensible doesn’t even begin to cover it.
yeah, well, looks to me like Laura Silsby is winning, one way or another..after all, does she not monopolize and occupy most all your time and writing, blog space; my my, just like a juvenile baptist delinquent, succeeding in getting worldwide attention (for God) lol, by destructive and negative agenda and behaviors!!
…sudder to think of all the other trafficking traversties we arent hearing about because Laura Silsby always takes front and center…
But this is what I write about. The adoption industry. baby dumping, and adoptee and identity rights. I specialize in Haiti and Russia. I’m working on a Russian piece right now that I hope to get up tonight.
Baby Love Child writes a lot about trafficking and corruption as does Mirah Riben. There are others.
It’s not about anyone winning It’s about keeping a story alive and exposing the crooks. I’m also a journalist and plan to have some stuff coming out.
Anonymous 7:30, I wish there were more cases coming to light. I remember an aid worker a few weeks ago saying quite clearly that babies were turning up missing from makeshift hospitals, and that at least 15 children were unaccounted for. You kind of get the feeling of people were just slipping away, and since none of the commenters here are in Haiti (as far as I know), we can’t exactly snoop around the border waiting for another busload of babies driven by idiots to show up…
In the meantime, we might as well investigate what we do know.
Also, as an aside, I’ve been doing searches for “adoption” and “orphans” plus “Chile” after the recent horrific quake, and have not found a single adoption story. Obviously Chile is a very different country, but it looks like the adopter crowd has its hands full…
Marley – Thank you for continuing to bring us this story. There are so many odd things at play here. I wonder if the judge has heard about her plan to continue “gathering” “orphans”? Surely he will consider this as an indication that she has not learned her lesson. I would hope, at the very least, that he will prevent them from returning to Haiti once they are released.
Anon 7:30. A lot of those who traffic in children to fill the needs of big-paying PAPs are in the shadows. This one is in the limelight as stands as an example of all that is wrong with a corrupt industry. As far as providing publicity for “God,” I think anyone who cares has a right to denounce the religious right, who are obviously thinking they have some divine right to do a bit of social engineering.
Anon Judge (yes, I dare to judge, heaven forbid we do that here on earth, God gave us brains for a reason): I shudder to think of what would have happened to those children if she had gotten them over the border. And I’m not talking abuse, I’m talking being taken from your poor, but living parents, and being in a temporary hotel and having to bond with new workers coming every 2 weeks to take care of you! Would that mess with your mind or what? Look at how Silsby “ran” her business and her own life and how much she cares about her own children and the employees that worked for her – those actions tell us a lot. She has said nothing (that I know of) about missing her own children while being locked up in Haiti! That makes no sense! She is completely in this for herself. Her sidekick is very ill – why doesn’t Silsby say let her go and keep me here in the meantime? If they release her, she needs to straighten out her mess of a life and she needs to atone for what she did to those children and parents in Haiti. I don’t believe all of the children have been reunited yet with their parents (if they have all been reunited, please let me know, hard to keep up with everything). My heart just broke over the Haitian mother who was almost catatonic over losing several of her children to Silsby! If Silsby is ever out and free and running around the US promoting herself, she needs to be reminded of this Haitian mother where ever she goes, until she does truly repent and atone for her sins.
That story of the Haitian mom who was so upset about her children leaving got to me too. I hope that the judge keeps her passport so that she cant try a do-over. I hope Silsby and gang keep talking because the more they open up their mouths the more we find out what they were up to and what they THINK their going to do. I hope that the Dominican Republic is following this and the keep a close eye on her and her orphanage plans.
Silslby’s comments to the AP were so far out there. There are 2 things you don’t when you’re in trouble (rightly or wrongly) You don’t talk to the cops until you’re lawyered up (and then you do what the lawyer says) and you don’t talk to the press. No matter what you say, no matter how innocent, it will be turned against you. And everything she says makes her look worse. It doesnt’ take some kind of media “manipulation” to see that.
I believe that Silsby believes with her whole heart that she did nothing wrong. She was doing God’s will,as channeled through her brain). She has no remorse. Granted, she is “sheltered” in jail right now with probably little idea of how she’s hated throughout the world. Moreover, she seems to have no conscience over coercing families to give up their children, especially under a veil of lies about the orphan hotel, and the harm she has caused numberless people. It’s kind of a seriously corrupted version of situational ethics.
I’d love to see people from Boise come out en masse and “greet” her at the airport. Maybe somebody will buy her a clue and she’ll sneak back in.
(part A)
As Bastardette has pointed out, I write regularly about the broader issues and seemingly endless stream of adoption and foster related “travesties.”
Trust me, there’s always more material than there are hours in the day.
That said, there are numerous reasons to put time and energy into documenting the Haitian stories (PLURAL!) including the New Life scavengers.
First and foremost being Haiti is where so many precedents are being set in relation to child welfare, inter-country adoption, and post catastrophe minors being forced into refuge status within their own home city and country. All of which have VAST implications in terms of the broader adoption and child trafficking landscape.
I have an entire post that I’ve been working on for some time now dedicated to many of the ‘landscape-changing’ aspects of what the U.S. and broader international community has used Haiti as an excuse to do. (I have no idea when I’ll actually have it finished and up, but I’ve been trying to get it written for some time now.)
The situation in Haiti and now in other scavenger countries that have imported kids not in any way ‘matched’ to would-be-adopters pre-quake is a pivotal point in time in relation to how inter-country adoption is practiced, what words like “orphan” really mean, and how Sislby & company and the consequences they do or do not receive are but AN example that speaks to a much broader whole.
You think for one moment Silsby taking front and center translates to even actual reporting on the ‘New Life Children’s Refuge’ effort or the Haiti child exports? It doesn’t.
Mainstream media isn’t for example, writing about the fact that Central Valley Baptist Church used it’s tax status to collect money and goods to make the New Life scavengers’ effort possible, there is no depth to the Silsby coverage, no digging into the finances that made it possible.
It’s down to a few bloggers, Bastardette included, to provide any form of thoughtful analysis or historical perspective on for example, the previous historical efforts at mass child exports, let alone the landscape of how all this current mess represents merely a piece of the broader child welfare and child selling industries globally.
(Part B)
Anon, you genuinely think digging out the unpleasant details of Silsby and the scavengers equates to Silsby “winning?” Think again.
Silsby “winning” would be more akin to the pointless puff pieces if not outright fawning over the ‘New Liars’ “religiosity” and “good intentions” or coverage of their ‘American’s held overseas’ (pseudo) “heroes welcome” than the investigative journalism and opinion Bastardette shares here.
Most media has moved on, but will gladly do glowing live coverage from the airports should Silsby and Coulter be released.
The governments of both countries would likely be glad to see the whole mess simply swept aside, Haiti so it can focus upon the day to day survival needs of so much of its population, and the U.S. because the entire ‘incident’ brings up so many unpleasant questions. Questions it seems no one wants answers to.(Certainly not the many adoption related public officials in Congress and the Senate.)
The adoption industry domestically, and internationally would far rather put the whole ‘incident’ behind them, it brought far too much of a spotlight and questioning of basic terms such as “orphan” or “orphanage” for the industry’s comfort.
At this point, some of the very few people keeping a watchful eye and still reporting on this mess are those of us side with the kids, rather than the child-poachers. Among them, adopted people, who understand the landscape all too well.
What we see in Haiti, with efforts such as the Rendells’ Raid, or the New Lifers are but microcosms of a far broader macrocosm.
For those still shining the flashlight down in on such, like Bastardette, I am nothing if not grateful.
Hi Baby love child Its obvious thst there are many abuses in the international adoption industry and thats why these people felt so confident in getting away with what they were doing. Yes I think that when they get to the bottom of all of this there are MANY big names involved. Silsby was just a patsy for them. I hope this story stays in the news and everyone sees what these people are doing and have been doing for a long time.
Hi everyone I also think that the judge in Haiti found something out and he is just trying to process what to do with the info. This is a very complicated issue and some big guys are going to be shaking in their boots.