7-10 YEARS FOR SLAVERY?!?

IS FLORIDA TRULY SORRY? That’s genuine, right?

Mom and daughter guilty of slavery charges
Vanessa Blum, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Published: Wednesday, March 05, 2008

SOURCE

A Fort Lauderdale federal jury on Tuesday convicted a south Florida mother and daughter on slavery charges for keeping a teenage girl from Haiti in servitude for six years.

After deliberating 51/2 hours, the jury of six men and six women convicted Maude Paulin, 52, a former middle school teacher, and her mother, Evelyn Theodore, 74, of conspiring to enslave the girl, forcing her to work and harbouring an illegal immigrant.

Paulin’s ex-husband, Saintfort Paulin, 60, was found guilty of harbouring an illegal immigrant.

Miramar resident Claire Telasco, 43, Paulin’s sister, was acquitted of all charges.

Any relief at Telasco’s acquittal was overshadowed by grief among friends and relatives gathered in support.

The Paulins’ daughter ran from the courtroom wailing after the clerk read the first guilty verdict against her mother.

"Injustice. Injustice," Telasco seethed as she left the courthouse.

"Innocent people are going to jail for trying to help."

During the five-day trial, Simone Celestin, 22, testified she was brought to the United States from Haiti when she was 14 to be a maid in the Paulins’ home in southwest Miami.

She said she was forced to sleep on the floor and work 15 hours a day cleaning the house instead of going to school.

Celestin also testified she worked without pay on the weekends for Telasco -- a charge for which the jury did not find sufficient evidence to convict.

Attorneys for the four defendants, all U.S. citizens from Haiti, had argued Celestin made up the slavery story to secure legal immigration status as a victim of human trafficking.

They insisted the family rescued Celestin from an orphanage and tried to enrol her in school, only to be turned away because she was too far behind.

"I’m disappointed," said Leonard Fenn, Theodore’s lawyer. "I thought the government’s case was weak."

Paulin and Theodore face likely sentences of seven to 10 years. Saintfort Paulin, 60, faces roughly one year. The three remain free on bail until their sentencing, set for May 20.


© The Calgary Herald 2008