Paramilitary Head Must Face N.Y. Jury
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A Haitian man who led a paramilitary organization in his native country must stand trial in New York on financial fraud charges before he can be deported, a state judge ruled yesterday.
The ruling, by Judge Abraham Gerges, was handed down in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, and rejects a request from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Emmanuel “Toto” Constant be deported as soon as possible to face justice in Haiti. Mr. Constant was convicted there in absentia for murders his organization, the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, committed in the early 1990s.
In a short ruling released yesterday, Judge Gerges wrote that if New York State can first prosecute Mr. Constant for an alleged mortgage fraud scheme, it should. Judge Gerges threw out a plea agreement between Attorney General Cuomo and Mr. Constant that would have hastened his deportation.
“These allegations, if true, are heinous, and the court cannot in good conscience consent to the previously negotiated sentence,” Judge Gerges wrote, referring to the allegations out of Haiti.
Members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, of which Mr. Constant was a leader, murdered and tortured supporters of President Aristide, human rights groups claim.
In court on Monday, Mr. Constant repeated claims that he was an asset for the CIA, according to an Associated Press report. “There is no proof whatsoever, your honor, anywhere in the world that can link me to any type of massacre, execution, kidnapping, rape or anything of that sort,” he claimed, according to the report.
A civil rights group in Manhattan, the Center for Constitutional Rights, had urged that Judge Gerges reject the plea deal partly on the grounds that Mr. Constant’s return to Haiti should be delayed until the criminal justice system in that country was improved.
At a hearing this week, Mr. Constant, 50, expressed fear that he would be killed upon his return to Haiti, according to news reports.
Mr. Constant faces up to 15 years of prison in New York if he is convicted on the mortgage fraud charges. The criminal complaint alleges that he used straw buyers to defraud a bank of more than a million dollars. Mr. Constant has lived in this country since 1994.
