Oh the Audacity! Jorge es Inocente.com

Giving new meaning to the word chutzpah. Jorge Torres Puello has just put up a webpage: Jorge es Inocente.com. It includes his biography, legal documents (including a certificate of good conduct), audio tapes, videos...and Martha Stewart!

Many of the videos show the release of the "missionaries" and their return to Idaho. Apparently Yoram doesn't realize that these are some of the most hated people in the US today, and that most of us think they belong in jail right next to Dick Cheney and Tim Geithner. To win friends and influence people he does not want to take credit for that.

The page is in Spanish, and I need to go through it yet. The audio didn't work, but I trust that will be fixed soon.

The reinvention begins!

Jorge Torres Puello speaks - 1 & Introduction

This evening I received a series of posts to The Daily Bastardette from "Yoram" purporting to be Jorge Torres Puello. I have verified that the posts came from OneMax, an ISP in the Dominican Republic, which one of our commenters determined earlier was connected to Torres Puello. My Site Meter also indicates the posts came from DR and the time matches perfectly with the posting times. Since these posts were intended to be comments, I will post them as comments, but am also posting them here in separate blogs--one for each post. I am releasing them in the order they were sent (1-7 top to bottom.) These "comments" will also be posted on my other site End Child Exportation and Trafficking of Children in Haiti.

What I find so..well, interesting about these posts is that 95% (or more) pertain to the writer proving his Jewish, not his innocence of the crimes for which he is accused.

I will comment on these later, but I wanted to get them up now.

Below is post #1.

Message 1: February 18, 2010 4:55:09PM


Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT...":

I am open to answer any question you have on me about my Yiddishkite, or anything
my e-mail is sephardicjews@gmail.com , I am not affraid to answer all you question and give you proof!!!!

Posted by: Jorge Torres Puello | February 18, 2010 at 02:32 PM

1. My Mothers mother is Swiss, her name is Miriam Rosental. And during the Shoach she moved to the DR and her name was changed by Trujillo for political reasons to Maria.She married my Grand Father Mannuel Puello a beirut Jew who moved to the Dominican Republic.

2. My family never practice Jewdaism and I never went to Jewish school BUT I WAS A JEW BORN TO A JEWISH MOTHER. (MEMBER OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE SYNAGOGUE SHEARITH ISRAEL IN MONTREAL)

3. After all my troubles I decided to do Baal Shuva and with the Help of a Montreal Rabbi I returned to the Jewish Community.

4. I never choose the life I had, I never made any money with any B´nei Anous, the story that you dont know is that I Gave more than US$600,000 to help others return to Judaism. ALL MY MONEY.

5. In Canada while working undercover for the US Gov. The government never told the Canadian that they were conducting an investigation ilegaly inside Canadian Soil, I get trap in to this mess. I WAS RELEASE AFTER BEEN ILEGALY DETAINED IN PRISON FOR AN EXTRADITION TO THE U.S.

http://www.jugements.qc.ca/php/decision.phpliste=43347653&doc=40ED16F07C55B420380442E250FA4EAA52DAB6E15F36E99CF79158890E924272&page=2

http://www.jugements.qc.ca/php/decision.php?liste=43347653&doc=40ED16F07C55B420380442E250FA4EAA52DAB6E15F36E99CF79158890E924272&page=2

read it your self.

My mother has never been religious and she married on her secon marriage a chatolic man. (That don´t take away my jewishness)

The reason Rabbi Perlman and Isaac Rudman don like me is because they dont like poor jews, and the b´nei anous had no money. (Like Hashem choosed only rich people when our father Abraham Abinu times)

The Mohel who did my sons bris was an ultra orthodox jew ISRAEL HELLER from New York, some one recomended by Rabbi Perlman´s boss Rabbi Zarchi from Chabad Puerto Rico.

Kulanu never sent me a dime, if you go to their web site in the news letter you will find more news about the community, and the forest foundation send some help for Chanukka when I built the biggest Chanukkia in dominican history.

As for the charges in El Salvador I am being extorted, I was not even there when in the span of the time when the crime was committed.

If you need more let me know

JORGE TORRES PUELLO (YORAM)

P.S. Yoram is in the book of Kings. Not a new israeli name.

Jorge Torres Puello Speaks - 2

Message 2: February 18, 2010, 4:58:30PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT...":

Sorry for the link it wont work that way

http://www.jugements.qc.ca/

use this one and tipe my name

JORGE TORRES

or

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VS JORGE TORRES

read it below

SUPERIOR COURT

CANADA

PROVINCE OF QUEBEC

DISTRICT OF
MONTREAL

No:
500-36-003375-048

DATE:
June 9th, 2004

______________________________________________________________________

PRESIDING:
THE HONOURABLE
Mr. JUSTICEJ. FRASER MARTIN, J.S.C.
______________________________________________________________________

TORRES, JORGE ANIBAL

Petitioner

v.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Respondent

And

LE DIRECTEUR DU CENTRE DE DÉTENTION R.D.P.

Third party
______________________________________________________________________

JUDGMENT
______________________________________________________________________

[1] I am inclined in particular circumstances of this case to take a rather restrictive view of article 69 of the Extradition Act.

[2] There is one thing that is clear. This is intended to be an expeditive procedure, the act is drafted in that fashion, delays are set out and the delays stand to be respected.

[3] There is no doubt that to some considerable degree Mr. Torres is the author of his own misfortune, in view of the (numerous, huge) number of letters that have been sent on an ongoing argument at various dates to the Ministry of Justice but that does not excuse for one second the Ministry of Justice.

[4] The Minister has his obligations under the Act, the Minister has the obligation to act in one way or another and it is totally unacceptable that the Minister's counsel, paralegals or everybody else put off under the guides of incorporating this into a final submission to the Minister that would be given at some elastic date on the future without having regard for any of the delays that are set out in the Act that somehow or other somebody be kept incarcerated for months on end.

[5] Giving this the most charitable interpretation that it can be given, from the point of view of the Minister of Justice, Mr. Torres has one way or the other been detained illegally since the 13th of March because he was entitled to do a decision by that date at the very least. (2003) (YEAR ADDED BY ME)

[6] As I say, not for me to speculate on the consequences but I read discharged out of custody to mean discharged out of custody purely and simply and I am cognisant that Mr. Justice Hébert has already declined to grant a stay of proceedings in this matter, so that I should not be interpreted the same that the order that I am rendering today intended to be interpreted in that sense. Not at all.

[7] I am interpreting section 69 to mean that he should be discharged from custody awaiting the decision of the Minister and it is not for me to specify as of today within what delays the Minister should act. That is up to the Minister to determine and to act accordingly.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT:

GRANTS in part the Petition and

ORDERS the immediate release of Mr. Torres from custody.

Mr. Torres:

The conditions for your release are the following:

a) To keep the peace and be a good behaviour and to attend to Court when required;

b) To reside at [...], Granby and not to change your address without the authorization of the Court;

c) To remain within the territorial limits of the Province of Quebec;

d) To abstain from applying a passport and I note that your two passports, one which is for the United States and the other for Dominican Republic have been surrendered;

e) To report to the RCMP at Granby between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm and signed the register once a week on Friday, beginning on the 11th of June of 2004 and to report to the RCMP within 24 hours of receiving the Minister's decision with regard to surrender;

I take that these conditions will be respected

George Torres Puello Speaks - 3

Message 3: February 18, 2010 5:00:52PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT...":

If you want a letter of my sinagogue in canada I will send it to everyone, I BELONG TO THE OLDEST SYNAGOGUE IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, even before all this Sphardic hater Kuzzars came to america. We are the true jews the Jews from the Arab Countries and Sepharad. The Ramban, Rambam, Rashi, Onkelos, Don Senior etc. Are all Sephardic. You don´t see any Auskenazim. or Black Hats or Schreimers in during the golden age of Judaism. It makes me sick that all this Kuzzars whant to step over our sages decision.

<<>> [ויקרא-Vayikra. 26:44]

Jorge Puello Speaks - 4

Message 4, February 18, 2010, 5:01:54PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT...":

<<>> [יִרְמְיָה, Yirmĭyahu. 31:37]


<<>> [סנהדרין‎-Sanhedrin 44a]

- Hide quoted text -

<< (According to Kings 19:18, there were 7,000 faithful Israelites who) “have not bowed to Baal, we did not see that it occurred to any of our Sages that our forefathers who betrayed God, rebelled against Him and denied Him should be called ‘complete gentiles’ or ‘worse than gentiles,’ and that their sons who repented and worshipped God should be considered proselytes >> [R. She’ adyá ben Maimon ibn Danan, Khemdah Genuzah, 15a]

In views of Divine, Prophetic, Talmudic and post-Talmudic understanding, an apostate Israelite is still an Israelite. It follows that an Anous, who was forced into avoda zara / foreign cult, and their children who are born in a state of duress among non-Jews, are also Israelites:

<< (the children of Anusim), who have never seen the light of the Torah, are no different from Jewish children who have lived as prisoners among non-Jews or with Karaites (Israelites who do not believe in the authority of Oral Torah), even Maimuni, Hiljot, Mamrim III, 3, had compassion on them, and treated them lightly. >> [R. Abraham de Aboab – year 1694 -- Deber Shemuel, No. 45(S. 18c f.)]

It hardly ever occurred to the Sages of Israel in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Algiers, Morocco, Amsterdam, London – in fact every where the most brilliant luminaries of our tradition flourished – to call Anusim “gentiles” much less “proselytes”. Because, as received in the mouth of Rabbi Samuel de Medina from his teacher R. Taytazak, as confirmed by Gaon Zemah, in relation to the Anusim:

Jorge Torres Puello Speaks - 5

Message 5 February 28, 2010, 2010 5:03:42PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT..."

<< . . . if anyone brought up the question about the possibility that the child is from a non-Jewish woman, might answer would be that UNLESS THERE IS PROOF TO THE CONTRARY, we take as fact that the child is from a Jewish woman. Furthermore, we assume that all Marranos are descendants of Jews . . . and just as we assume the father of the Marrano is Jewish, we give as fact that each mother of the Marrano is Jewish >> [Responsa III, 112]

In other words, the proof for the matrilineal descent lies with the accuser . . .

Not with the alleged victim. Why?

In the Mishna – the compilation of Oral Torah – we find an injunction that says:

<<>> [Kiddushin 4:10]

In another responsum, now in regards to the Anusim of Ashkenaz (Germany) in the 12th c., Rabbi Salomon bar Simson said:

<<>> [Geshichte der Juden in Deutschland a.a. O. p. 29, Bernfeld a.a. O.S. 192.]

Why? Very simple, to speak wrongs on Israel leads to impiety, as exposed by Maimonides, of blessed memory:

<<>> [Iggeret ha-Shemad, Halkin’s translation, (Philadelphia, 1993) p. 17]

Now I am also held accountable.

The very claim of the Anusim carries authority, and establishes the main reference point for rabbinical defense.

The Rabbis dialogue underneath the voice of the Anusim.

We hardly find any actions to the contrary. And since it is in the majority of opinions to consider Anusim as part of Israel, it follows that it is treated with the utmost respect and care.

Therefore, there should be to no one’s amazement to see R. Aaron Soloveichik response when he says:

Jore Puello Speaks - 6

Message 6: February 18, 2010: 5:04:23PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT..."

Again, I must go back to the few Rabbis who are aware (not even knowing) the legal precedence on Anusim, and yet have to conform to the Status Quo to avoid any problems. Yet, let it be known they are not obliged and loop wholes can be found within the system.

In all fairness, you must understand that the whole issue of “conversion” is abhorred in the minds of some Anusim.

They have every right to think so.

We know that some people demanded also conversion from Yemenite Jews decades ago, yet the Yemenite community stood on its feet and fought their way through. How does one Jew have the right to invalidate the other’s lineage? Anusim lack the communal aspect, and as a result they cannot defend themselves jointly.
By all that we know on Anusim, no ceremony of “conversion” was ever performed and neither a certificate was ever issued.

Can anyone bring me the Responsa from 1400’s to 1800’s that explicitly show how this was ever done? For all we know, Anusim were treated on the same footing as it is done with any Jew today who did not grow up in the ways of tradition.
For all that this is worth . . . 761 years ago, the monastic orders in Spain set out to preach to Jews in their synagogues and convince them to conversion; 611 years ago the violent persecutions and conversions began in Seville; 515 years ago the longest, the most organized machinery for the destruction of the core of Israel (their soul) was founded.

The Inquisition aim was to eradicate the Jewish soul from the conversos, believing in the Christian doctrine that through Jesus everyone forms parts of the Church’s body and are no longer their former selves, and Judaism corrupts that “Body” , therefore we had to be treated as a disease that ultimately was cured with fire.

This is what happened to the community that revived Hebrew in its spoken and written forms, whose communities gave us the Codifiers of our Law, the liturgical poems most respected in our traditions, the Science and Translations that spread through the Civilized world, and a good name that speaks of elegance, mutual respect, and brilliant wit; whose descendants opened the doors again to France and England, and the New World .

Giving into Giur l’humra represents inversely the recognition that the Church achieved its aim.

Anusim are no longer Israel . . . Anusim are Aliens to be “newly” adopted into the house of Jacob.

is this how Jews today pay respect to tradition and the berit?

Thank you,

Sincerely,

yoram Torres.

Posted by: Jorge Torres Puello | February 18, 2010 at 03:06 PM

Every one concentrates in what I did WRONG (NOT FOUND GUILTY YET), and don´t even mention that I risk my life for other

Jorge Torres Puello Speaks - 7

Message 7: February 18, 2010 5:04:44PM

Yoram has left a new comment on your post "WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT...":

<<>>

For Judaism to be operative in what we call the “chain of tradition”, the full force the Written and Oral Torah, the commentaries of the Talmud, and the post-Rabbinic tradition as deposited in the Responsa have to operate hand in hand.

To render any of these useless, renders the whole “chain” inoperative. For this reason, Maimónides in his Mishne Torah – who in the name of the Sages – says:

<<>> [MT Hilkhot Mamurim, II.2]

Because it is certain that we all are dwarfs in the presence of the luminaries of the tradition, and when will it happen for us to surpass them? Let me let you into a secret: Never.

And how can anyone explain to the Anusim – with the full use of Halakha – how these most central matters on Israel’s identity do not come violated to its very core through the use of Giur?

Is this perhaps a joke? Can Israel be Israel without what the Sages have known for all times? And how can one invalidate the lineage of another Israelite without first bringing proof? And borrowing an expression from Maimonides, to make Anusim (coerced Israelites) into Gerim (adopted into the house of Jacob) is a “ranter of nonsense.”

Since when is permissible to take advantage of the innocent’s ignorance?

It is certain proving the Ignorance of some individuals through the Anusim filter.

And how we prove their ignorance? Ask them how many Rabbis decreed in favor of Anusim; Ask them for how long this went on; Ask them to prove you how their decision to make a Ger from an Anusim validates tradition.
They shall remain speechless for they have not been taught; yet they do not seem to have the responsibility to explain themselves either. As Maimonides lamented over 800 years ago:

<<>> [Iggeret ha-Shemad, Chp I]
Yet, ignorance by itself is not a sin.

Under all this, Anusim have every right to resist a “conversion” as understood in the sense of “adoption”. On the other hand, in no way they can, as with any Israelite, remove themselves from practicing Judaism . . .

Giur may be the “only” way as offered by some today, yet I cannot see how this is the correct way.

Is Jorge Torres Puello Really Jewish?

Accurate personal info, including the religious affiliation, of Jorge Torres Puello is scarce so far, but the question has caught on in the blogosphere: Is Torres Puello really Jewish? Although the relevancy of this question has nothing to do with adoption, the subject of the Daily Bastardette and End Child Exportatinon and Trafficking..., I'm going to take it on.

No reference is made to Torres Puello's religion in the interview with his mother and stepfather in the Miami Herald (registration required) or CNN. I've heard nothing to suggest he was born Jewish. Puello isn't a Jewish name, but Torres is. His father is reported to be Puerto Rican and if he were Jewish, it wouldn't make his son Jewish by birth. There are a couple media references saying that Torres Puello is a Jewish convert, but I've not seen any genuine documented source on that. If it is true, when did he convert and who did he convert under? Nobody has come forward to claim him.

We only "know" Torres Puello is Jewish because (1) he says he's Jewish and (2) he wears a kippah and talit. I have a talit. Does that make me a Jewish man?

When Did Jorge Torres Puello "Become" Jewish?
We know from various sources including Puello's mother Ana (Solead) Puello that her son skipped around a lot: the US, DR, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Canada. (There are now sketchy reports that he spent 18 months in a Canadian jail waiting for extradition to the US and was finally released). Puello and his mother further claim that he spent a year in jail in 1998 for handling funds from drug trafficking (he denies the drug charge) and was jailed briefly between 2001-2002 for a parole violation. I don't know about the 1998 or Canadian raps, but the 2001-2002 time was not a parole violation,. He pled guilty to attempting to negotiate a stolen Treasury check for $66,000 in Philadelphia using the name George Boyd, Jr.,verified in the February 1-15, 1999 Fraud Awareness Newsletter and his failed appeal for sentence reduction before the 3rd District Federal Court of Appeals.

To makes things more curious, according to CNN (above link):

both his mother and Torres Puello say he served briefly in the U.S. Army in a military intelligence unit, and Torres Puello said he also worked undercover with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Given Torres Puello's penchant for lies and quick change identities, I have my doubts this is true. But if it is, that could explain his relationship with fellow trafficker Pablo Nasser (how would a cheap con artist and common criminal like Torres Puello meet up with the Deputy Director of Immigration?) and open up a whole lotta mess for a whole lotta people.

We know that Torres Puello lived with his first wife Valerie in Plantation, Florida, and that after his 2005 common law marriage to second wife Ana Rameriz, lived in Puerto Rico. He seems, in fact, to have had several "legal addresses" in the last few years, and judging from the picture of his La Liberdad home, he wasn't hurting for cash.

Harry Ezratty places Torres Puello, aka Jorge Yoram Torres, in Santo Domingo in 2005, where he self-identified as an American Orthodox Jew and ran an internet cafe, though that is information probably furnished to Ezratty by Puello Torres. I have no practical way to research the alleged business.

We know that Torres Puello founded the DR Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Community in 2007, the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of El Salvador in 2008, and the for-profit Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of America in Florida in 2009, ostensibly to establish synagogues, perform religious marriages, conversion, certify kosher slaughter, etc. If and what these organizations did is so far unknown.

We know that there is Internet speculation that Torres Puello used the Chabad network to move his traffick. The Awareness Center: International Jewish Center Against Sexual Abuse/Assault posted the following yesterday:

According to reliable sources Jorge Torres Orellana davens (prays) at the Chabad in the Dominican Republic.

No details were offered. Read Twelfth Bough's thoughts on the subject here. There are a couple entries.

We know that the DR's small Jewish community is distancing itself from Torres Puello, claiming they never heard of him.

All of these "knowns" bring up the question: Is Jorge Torres Puello really Jewish?

If Torres Puello were a devout Orthodox Jew (by birth or conversion; Dominican or American), wouldn't he have sought out the tiny Jewish community in Santo Domingo? Wouldn't he have attended Santo Domingo's Centro Israelita de Republica Dominicana? Or Chabad? That didn't happen. Or at least that's the official story. According to Dr. Ezratty :

Obviously being Jewish, it was inevitable that someone would approach him [Jorge Yoram Torres]. It wasn't one of the members of the island's two tiny Jewish communities, but a Dominican who claimed a crypto-Judaic heritage.

By October 2006 when Dr. Ezratty met Jorge Yoram Torres, he had established his Jewish creds and was supposedly "advising" up to 3000 Dominicans who were or believed they were of Crypto-Jewish heritage and holding Jewish services in his backyard. The day Ezratty arrived in the DR, so did a mohel from Brooklyn to perform a bris on Torres Puello's son. Clearly he'd established his "Jewishness" well before that date.

I can't imagine that Santo Domingo's Jewish population was unaware of these backyard activities or other claims and fabrications:

They [Torres Puello's "congreation"] rallied to purchase a building with a sanctuary, classrooms and dormitories for men and women so that they might observe the Sabbath without traveling. For Hanukah Torres successfully petitioned the government for permission to erect a huge menorah in one of Santo Domingo 's busiest intersections. Torres didn't stop there; he got the government to donate land for a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery and a Jewish hospital. A rabbi has consented to help bring them back to Judaism and possible aliyah to Israel .

Just like there is no Laura Silsby-built New Life Children's Refuge, there are no Torres Puello-built sanctuary, dorms, or schools. There is no Jewish hospital. There are only two Jewish cemeteries in DR, one in Santo Domingo and a small cemetery at the Sosua Community. Neither of them are new.

Wouldn't the Jewish community have acknowledged the sudden appearance of a giant menorah in downtown Santo Domingo courtesy of Torres Puello? And who is the rabbi who "consented to bring them back to Judiasm and possible aliah to Israel?"

Isaac Rudman, president of the Israelite Center of the Dominican Repubic told David Gauthier-Villars in the Wall Street Journal that Torres Puello, whom he met two or three years ago under the name Jorge Torres, had "grandoise plans to build a hospital and a Jewish city close to Santo Domingo's airport, but nothing came from these plans."

This recollection, coming from Rudman, a prominent member of Santo Domingo's Jewish community, suggests that other Jewish leaders were also aware of Torres Puello and were put off by his "conflictive" Messianic complex. Or they thought he was a phony or a nut. Or maybe they weren't so much. Rudman's comment calls into question Chabad Rabbi Shimon Pelman's (right) claim that he's never heard of Torres Pulleo, especially when it's been reported from a source the Awareness Network trusts, that Torres Puello davens at Chabad:

I don’t know any Jews by that name,” said Rabbi Shimon Pelman, head of the Chabad Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic. “The only Jews community in the Dominican Republic is the chabad community or the Centro Israelita community. I know everybody and he doesn’t exist.

Something is up. Maybe Pelman doesn't know any Jews named Torres Puello because Torres Puello isn't Jewish. Maybe it's cover your ass.

Given Torrres Puello's self-aggrandizement and grifterness (not to mention other worse behavior), I think there's a good argument that Torres Puello's Jewishness is just another scam. with or without a strategic purpose. (And if it is "real" it's a prop and still a scam.) Like putting on a new name or moving to a new country. It's about delusion, reinvention and money. Why would DR's 400 Jewish citizens need a Jewish city, or another school? Planting synagogues sounds a lot like evangelical work, not what Jews with rap sheets do. And what happened to Torres Pulleos "congregation"and members of the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Community? Who are they? There is no indication that they've come forward to defend their "adviser." Did he try to scam them and they bolted? Or did he scam them and bolt to El Salvador with the loot? Or do they even exist? It's looking pretty much like Jorge is alone under that bus

The purpose of the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of America (and I'm guessing the Puerto Rican, and Salvadoran organizations, which I can find no legal documents for, and the DR organization whose papers the New York Times has seen) is interesting because it seems charitable, though it is registered as a for-profit. The council would:

Represent the Sephardic Jewish communities in the Americas, and establish synagogues and performing religious marriages, conversion, kosher certification, Rabbi appointment and kosher supervisors, arbitration and mediation services.

It sounds like the "grandoise plan" for the Jewish city was getting a paper makeover to look legit and rake in the dough. Or something. Why was Torres Puello incorporating in Florida while allegedly running an international sex trafficking outfit is anybody's guess. Maybe he was building cover and if so why? Sex trafficking or something bigger? Maybe he suffers from multiple personality disorder. Maybe he's stupid. Maybe all of them.

A couple of small points
One of my anonymous posters on the Daily Bastardette points out that on the now defunct Puello Real Estate, (cache) the Besiyata Dismaya is misplaced; though I think this could be a computer problem:

Besiyata Dismaya," the Sephardic/ Aramaic version of "Bet Hay/ B'ezrat Hashem" (with the help of G-d) is supposed to be on the upper right hand corner of the page. It precedes any written or printed word. His web page has it in the wrong place. Not a biggie, but an observant Jew with an Orthodox education would know that.

Also, would a devout Orthodox Jew have a common law wife? I thought the Talmud forbade that or at least greatly frowned on it.

Who's scrubbing wiki:
Somebody has been busy scrubbing references to Jorge Torres Puello off of wiki. As I noted Sunday, the reference to "Jorge Yoram Torres" disappeared in midstream on the wiki entry for "Luis de Torres." Now, he's gone from wiki's "History of the Jews in El Salvador." The Sephardic Orthodox Council of North America has gone missing from "History of The Jews in the Dominican Republic"

As of this writing:

Wiki caches referencing Torres Puello on "History of Jews in the Dominican Republic," "Spanish and Portuguese Jews," and "Luis de Torres" are wiped clean.

Jorge Yoram Torres, remains in this cache from "Spanish and Potuguese Jews" under the "Other permanent personalities" list.

The reference to The Sephardic Jewish Orthodox Council of El Salvador remains on the Spanish and Portuguese page.

I don't have time right now to try to figure out who's cleaning up Jorge's mess.

******

Jorge Torres Puello is a creature of his own creation, reinvention, and destruction. The question of his religion is irrelevant and a distraction from the real issue: the trafficking of women and children for sex, servitude, and adoption and the part he plays in the Silsby setup. (Nothing turns on a Baptist woman more than trying to convert a Jewish man). But it is also relevant, if he is using his "religion" to con rip-off and exploit his victims, co-religionists, and the rest of us, and is using a corrupt network to move his "goods." If he is indeed using the Chabad network to smuggle people, (I just don't see enough evidence right now, but I am convinced there are many layers of corruption here, it it can get legs) then we are sitting on a big big story that goes deep into all kinds of governments and black ops. Torres Puello's alleged work with the DEA and Homeland Security, if true, puts a whole new spin on things that leaves the Silsby Gang in the dust.

I don't believe for one moment that Torres Puello is Jewish. But I do believe he is quite capable of "being Jewish," (like someone is capable of being Catholic or being Norwegian); that is, deconstructing an identity and building a new persona for a big haul. It's play acting. It's fun. Why he would pick Judiasm, I have no idea, but as another commenter pointed out tonight, "Perhaps he passed his time in jail reading about Judaism, and decided to grow a beard and buy some Kippot/ Yamelkahs to assume a new identity." I was thinking that myself. I know someone who did that in prison, only he actually converted and became a huge pain.

Whatever is going on is messy. It's about money. And it reeks.

Who is Jorge Puello? part 2: Jumping Down the Rabbit Hole

INTERPOL: WANTED
JORGE TORRES ORELLANA (Jorge Pulleo)
CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN, PEOPLE SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING & ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Thanks to everyone commenting and sending tips. They are tremendously helpful. Tomorrow I plan to sit down and go through them carefully. "Plan" being the operative word. The way the story is moving it won't surprise me if Jorge Puello is picked up in Andorra by then. In the meantime, it's impossible to keep up and comment cogently on breaking Puello events. The best way is to break the story into chunks, although with so much new news, old news gets tossed aside, at least for now.

Today I'm writing about Jorge Puello. Next, unless something big breaks, I'll give an update on the New Lifers.

*****

On February 11, 2010 ((New York Times) we first learned that New Life Children's Refuge "legal adviser" Jorge Puello, may not be who he claimed to be. As I determined earlier, and the New York Times verified, Puello is not a licensed lawyer in the Dominican Republic. In fact, he's not a lawyer anywhere. How Puello became the group's "legal adviser" is still unknown. Updates on that situation will appear in another entry.

The article said Jorge Callegas, head of the Salvadoran Border Police, told the Times that he was investigating accusations that a man with a Dominican passport under the name Jorge Anibal Torres Puello, worked a human trafficking ring that recruited women and underage girls to El Salvador with the promise of legitimate work. They were then sold into prostitution there and in Nicaragua, and DR. The sex ring was broken up when three prisoners, 14, 15, and 16 escaped from the house and went to police to report they had been forced to pose naked to promote the sex business. Multiple passports were found in the house, including one in the name of Jorge Torres Orellana.

Callegas, after seeing pictures of "legal adviser" Jorge Puello on television in Haiti, believed that "Jorge Puello" and "Jorge Anibal Torres Puello" and "Jorge Torres Orellana" were the same man. A February 12, article in The New York Times gave a few more details about the case, saying that suspect Puello had worked the ring with Ana Josefa Galbarina Ramierz Orellana, identified elsewhere as suspect Puello's Salvadoran common-law wife. Ramierz Orellana (currently in jail) and Pablo Nasser, (right) former deputy director of the Salvadoran Immigration Service. Last April, just before his arrest, Nasser attended a course on fraudulent document detection sponsored by the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) in collaboration with the Forensic Document Laboratory of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE/Homeland Security) and the Salvadoran government. This opens a new set of questions and issues, which need to be discussed, but not in this entry.

In response to the first Times article, "legal adviser" Puello claimed to know nothing about "Jorge Anibal Torres Puello" saying his full name is "Jorge Puello" (no middle name) and he'd been born in Yonkers (Westchester County), New York to a Dominican mother. Incredibly he claimed to have no passport. "In a subsequent interview he told the Times that his full name is "Jorge Aaron Bentath Puello" and he is president of the Sephardic Jewish Community in DR. Documents connected to that Sephardic community were found in the house where traffickers held the young women. The February 13 Times reported that Dominican records filed on November 1, 2007 indicate that the Sephardic Jewish Community is registered to Jorge Anibal Torres Puello. I have not been able to confirm that.

*****

The Miami Herald (February 14--registratation may be required), scored an exclusive interview with Torre Puello's mother Ana Puello and stepfather Franko Ceminara who live on the outskirts of Santo Domingo. They confimed that Jorge Puello is the Salvadoran trafficking suspect, though deny he would ever hurt a child. Cerminara says he accompanied his stepson to the jail where the New Lifers were held to bring them food and medication Neither know how Torres Puello became involved with Laura Silsby and her crew.

Ana Puello told the Herald that her son was born in Yonkers, but was reared, mostly by his grandmother, in Santo Domingo. He moved to Miami as a teenager. In 1998, under the name Jorge Torres alias George Boyd, Jr, he was indicted for bank fraud in Philadelphia. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, 6 months in a halfway house, 5 years probation and a $5000 fine after pleading guilty to attempting to negotiate a stolen $66,0000 US Treasury check. He appealed his sentence unsuccessfully. Like the current trafficking case, he was ID'd through video surveillance, fingerprint analysis, and positive witness identification. He was released on January 10, 2002 after Franko Cerminara went to the US to testify on his behalf. It is unclear why, but the US Marshal's Service issued a warrant for his arrest 10 months after his release, and he is currently on their fugitive list according to the Herald.

Torres Puello, has been married twice his mother says. He and his first wife Valerie lived in Plantation, Florida. In 2005, he married Ana Rameriz, who already had several children. He lived with her in Puerto Rico, possibly Canada, and then back to Santo Domingo where he bought a house with a pool. He reportedly attended law classes in 2000 and 2007, but dropped out.

Thanks to some super sleuthing by one of my "anon" commenters we can trace some of Torres Puello's activities in Santo Domingo. Go to Who is Jorge Puello? comment # 11 on my Daily Bastardette site. Through some whois research we find that the Puello Consulting phone number is linked to Puello Real Estate with Jorge listed as a real estate agent and his cousin (earlier identified as brother) Alejandro, as an attorney. As "anon" points out, Jorge sells cheap phone cards, too

Today when I typed in Puello Consulting's land line I got an ad for a 2000 Toyota Raum Jorge is selling for RD205,000, about $5700. The ad was placed on January 21, 2010, the day before Silsby & Co left for Haiti.

******

Having recently read a book about Crypto-Jews, I was curious about Puello Torre's claim to be a Sephardic Jew. Puello is not a Crypto-Jewish name, though Torres is. The problem is that the name Torres only came up a couple days ago when the scandal hit.

The Jewish population of DR is about 400 according to wiki, though there may be thousands of Crypto-Jews some of whom know their origins and follow at least some Jewish traditions and others who do not. There are three synagogues in DR, two in Santo Domingo: Centro Israelita de Republica Dominicana and a Chabad outreach center. The third is the Sousua Community (below right) located in Puerta Plata, which includes a Sephardic Beit Midrash dedicated to instruction of classical Hebrew, the Spanish-Portuguese rite, and teaching of Jewish Law. Sousua is, depending on which side of town you're on, between 4.5 and 9 miles miles (about a 10 minute drive) from Cabarete, the location of the to-be-built New Life Children's Refuge.

When the Miami Herald asked Dominican Jewish leaders about Torres Puello they claimed ignorance:

While Torres Puello has been telling reporters during recent interviews that he is convert to Judaism and is president of the Sephardic Jewish Community in the Dominican Republic, several Jewish leaders say they have never heard of him.

``I don't know any Jews by that name,'' said Rabbi Shimon Pelman, head of the Chabad Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic.

``The only Jewish community in the Dominican Republic is the chabad community or the Centro Israelita community. I know everybody, and he doesn't exist.''

Interesting.

In Fall 2007, The Society for Crypto Judiac Studies published an article on DR Crypto-Jews Visiting Anusim in the Dominican Republic. Anuism refers to Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity, but secretly kept their traditions. The article was written by Harry A. Ezratty, a Baltimore attorney and prominent scholar and historian of Jews in the US, Central America and the Caribbean. Ezratty lived in Puerto Rico for 25 years and is fluent in Spanish. A man using the name Jorge Yoram Torres--clearly our Jorge Torres Puello-- is central to the article, and many of the things we now know about Torres Puello are included in the article. (My emphasis):

When Jorge Yoram Torres moved to the city of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, he never dreamed he would become the founder of the largest congregation on that island. Born in Westchester County , New York , he has lived in Puerto Rico and Canada. A young Orthodox Jew, Torres sports a beard, a kippah, and the fringes of his dangle outside his shirt. His Spanish is perfect. In 2005, Torres opened an internet café in Santo Domingo, offering credit card and long distance calls, fax facilities and a sales office for cell phones.

Obviously Jewish, it was inevitable that someone would approach him. It wasn't one of the members of the island's two tiny Jewish communities, but a Dominican who claimed a crypto-Judaic heritage. What Torres discovered amazed him. A large group of Dominicans had been meeting for over 25 years, studying Torah weekly. Many claimed Jewish roots.

For over two and a half decades, they had no serious contact with Jews until they met Jorge Torres. Their leaders had made overtures to Santo Domingo 's Jewish community for assistance but were rebuffed. Now they were asking Torres for help. He went to Kulanu, an organization that assists “out of the way” Jewish communities. Jack Zeller, Kulanu's coordinator, called me and asked me to visit with the group and report on what I found.

I arrived at Las Americas airport in October, 2006, and was greeted by Torres and several enthusiastic members of the community. My trip involved a mitzvah , as it coincided with the Brit Millah of Jorge's son, which I attended. Torres contacted a mohel from Brooklyn , New York. who would also be arriving that day to perform the service. It was an auspicious event for the members of this community who had never seen or attended a circumcision. What I discovered was that this group was made up of about 3,000 dedicated members, some of whom alleged a crypto-Judaic background. Because of time restraints, I was only able to interview a dozen or so persons. Those I did speak with claimed that one quarter to a third of them are descendants of early colonial Jews. I heard the classical stories of grandparents and parents telling them that they were Jews or that there were odd rituals of candle lighting Friday nights or refraining from eating on certain days. I was not there to determine the veracity of their claims but to make recommendations on how they might be helped. I alerted Stanley Hordes and Seth Kunin, who are studying crypto Jews in the Caribbean islands once belonging to the Spanish Empire. They are now weeding out the claims and performing the necessary detective work to discover the true backgrounds of any Dominican anusim...

and

...This group has a remarkable history. For the past 25 years, they have met on the Shabbat, reading from the only version of the Torah available to them: just one precious book written in Spanish and containing the Five Books of Moses. It has been lovingly circulated amongst the community's leaders. Taken home by one of them weekly, the Book then studied and used by that person as he led the group for his appointed week. With no Jewish guidance as to the established meanings of the passages, the community followed the Bible literally as they understood it. For Passover they took a lamb into the woods and slaughtered it, kosher style.

When they met Torres their lives began to change. He held Rosh Ha Shonah services in the spacious courtyard of his home. They rallied to purchase a building with a sanctuary, classrooms and dormitories for men and women so that they might observe the Sabbath without traveling. For Hanukah, Torres successfully petitioned the government for permission to erect a huge menorah in one of Santo Domingo 's busiest intersections. Torres didn't stop there; he got the government to donate land for a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery and a Jewish hospital. A rabbi has consented to help bring them back to Judaism and possible aliyah to Israel .

NOTE: Hordes and Kunin are leading Crypto Judiac scholars. Hordes published The Sephardic Legacy in the Spanish Caribbean: Crypto-Jewish Settlement in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamica in the Spring 2009 premiere issue of Crypto Jewish Journal.
The article is not online.

I admit that I don't understand the politics of the DR Jewish and Crypto-Jewish community Of course, Torres Puello, who seems to be a talented con artist, could have been blowing smoke at Ezratty. Ezratty, however, met some people who considered Torres a "leader," participated in events, and was impressed enough with him and his "congregation" to write about him, recommend him to Hordes and Kunin, and send a positive report back to Zeller, although I have found no reference to Torres Puello on the Kalanu webpage. I have found no reference, either, to a menorah in downtown Santo Domingo. Was Ezaratty sold a bill of goods? Maybe

But, there are other references to Torres Puello showing he may not be as invisible as the DR Jewish community would like him to be:

The February 14, 2010 Wall Street Journal, offers this tidbit, which almost makes Torres Puello feel like Laura Silsby's soulmate, and ties back to what Ezratty wrote:

Isaac Rudman, the president of the Israelite Center of the Dominican Republic, said he once met Mr. Puello two or three years back. At the time, Mr. Puello introduced himself as Jorge Torres, and had a letter of introduction from a synagogue in Canada, Mr. Rudman said.

Mr. Rudman said he heard over the years that Mr. Puello had grandiose plans to build a hospital and a Jewish city close to Santo Domingo's airport, but nothing came from these plans.

Mr. Rudman's impression from his one meeting with Mr. Puello was that he was very "conflictive," he said. "His attitude was 'the Messiah has arrived'" said Mr. Rudman.

Wiki, due to its open source, can be vulnerable to Torres Puello's charms. Jorge Yoram Torres, for instance, made an appearance in El Salvador with History of Jews in El Salvador:

During the civil war many Jews left the country. The Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador was established in 1944 with a Jewish community center opening in 1945 and a synagogue in 1950 and in 2008 the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of America and the Sephardic Jewish Community is founded by Jorge Yoram Torres.

Jorge Yoram Torres also showed up in Puerto Rico in the wiki biography of Luis de Torres , probably born Yosef Ben Ha Levy Haivri. de Torres traveled on Columbus's first expedition. possiibly against his will. He is considered the first Jew to settle in the New World:

In the Bahamas there are two synagogues that bear the name of "Luis de Torres."

Luis de Torres, ended his days as he was called Borinquen Pierto Rico, near a town called Lares, which bears a name from the letter Reish The name is thought to have been given one of his students of languages. Today the descendants of the second marriage of Don Luis de Torres as he was known, are in this town of Puerto Rico, Don George Torres and his son Don Jorge "Yoram" Torres and their direct descendants.

I printed out the above entry at 11:45 PM, February 13, 2010. By 6:04 AM on February 14, 2010 , when I went to pick up the link, those those paragraphs had mysteriously disappeared.

******

On March 16, 2009 Jorge Torres. Jr. filed papers with the Florida Secretary of State to incorporate the for-profit Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of America, Inc. Torres is listed as registered agent and president, Ana Ramirez vice president, and Ester Orellana treasurer. All three have Linkedin pages, but little information on them.. There are possible links to other corporatons, but that will take awhile to track down, so I'm skipping that for now.

The corporration submits its purpose as:

Represent[ing]the Sephardic Jewish comunities in the Americas, and establing synagoges and performing religious marriages, conversion, kosher certification, Rabbi appointment and kosher supervisors, arbitration and mediation services.

The principal address is listed in Doral, Florida and the mailing address is in the Bosques de Lourdes section of la Liberdad, El Salvador. It appears to be the house where the young women were held captive (left)

"Jorge Yoran Torres -President of the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of America and B'nei Anusim advocate" appears on numerous Jewish websites in what appears to be lifted--again-- from wiki. Included in these very long entries is a directory of Sephardic synagogues around the world. There is no listing for the Dominican Republic but we find this for El Salvador:

Sephardic Orthodox Jewish Council of Salvador "Shearit Israel" (2008)

http://sephardicjews.org; http://www.kosheresavaldor.com (neither of which work)

the only orthodox synagogue in El Salvador

But there's a problem. There is only one synagogue in the whole country, and it's not the Orthodox Council.

******

Jorge Torres Puello, like Laura Silsby, is a self-promotor, a narcissist, a reinventor, and a liar. He is a sex trafficker. She is an adoption trafficker. Both compartmentalize their lives with religion and corruption. Both commodify children and women.. Both believe that they are above the law. I honestly can't imagine why Torres Pulleo positioned himself in the middle of an international incident pretending to be a lawyer, especially with the voice-in-my heads from Central Valley Baptist Church and their brain inept leader. And why would the CVBC christo-colonials take Torres Puello's word sight unseen? A gift from God, no doubt. But, then, everything about this case is crazy.

There is growing evidence the Torres Pulleo had no prior relationship with most of the detainees. I am not convinced of Laura Sisby, though. There are, in fact, still many areas to look in to outside of Silsby. One should be the relationship between Puelleo and sex tourist real estate and rental agents. Another is a possible link between Torres Puello and CIA trafficking. How far has the sex ring investigation gone? Trafficking demands more than three players. And of course, what was Puello up to, whether he knew Laura Silsby before or after.

EVIDENCE GROWS AGAINST JORGE PUELLO; RELEASE OF KIDJACKERS MAY BE DELAYED

Big news popping out of DR tonight.

The New York Times reports a growing amount of evidence to connect New Life Children's Refuge "legal adviser" Jorge Puello to a sex trafficking ring operating in El Salvador. The trafficking suspect, who police believe is Puello, worked with Pablo Nasser, the former deputy director of the Salvadoran Immigration Service to lure foreign girls and women into the country and sell them into prostitution.

The latest break comes from two sources: (1) photographs that appear to match Puello and the trafficking suspect and (2) public and court records linking Puello to a Florida address that is tied to the suspect.

Hey, I thought Jorge didn't have a passport!

Here's what the Times says:

The Salvadoran police asked their Dominican counterparts on Friday to arrest Mr. Puello. “Dominican authorities should proceed to detain him,” said Augusto Cotto, deputy director of investigations for the Salvadoran police. “If the fingerprints coincide, we’d begin the process to try to bring him to El Salvador.”

Eric Álvarez, a spokesman for the Salvadoran chief prosecutor’s office, said Friday that judicial officials had determined that photographs of Mr. Puello in Haiti matched those of the suspect wanted in El Salvador.

and

Asked about his identity [by police] Mr. Puello said that he had been married to Valerie Velasquez and that their home address in the United States had been in Plantation, Fla. Public documents and court records seem to tie, by name and birth date, Mr. Puello and the Florida street address to the suspect in the Salvadoran case.

Just for fun, I ran an Intellius search for Jorge and Valerie and found them in Plantation. Of course, the police, which I'm not, used something better than that. I have been unable to find a home address for Jorge or his brother Alejandro in Dominican online phone books.

The new revelations may keep the New Lifers in their cells for awhile. Judge Saint-Vil was expected to order some kind of release on Monday, but he has made clear that he wants the Puello situation settled before he does anything:

Judge Saint-Vil said he had no choice but to delay the group’s release until he knew more about Mr. Puello’s identity, any ties he might have to trafficking and what, if anything, the Americans knew about him...

...“I am working as fast as I can,” Judge Saint-Vil said. “But I must first understand Mr. Puello.”

The judge said an official from the American Embassy had called him Thursday night and asked for any information the judge had about Mr. Puello. He said the embassy would provide him on Monday with whatever additional information it was able to find about Mr. Puello.

Three days is an awfully short time to make a determination on the "good intentions" of the child lifters in light of Puello's suspected vocation. No decision should be made until the prints are made or other compelling evidence presented. If the prints match, then I think the "good intentions" of most or all of the New Lifers is gonna deep six., though no doubt they'll argue they were duped and innocent souls just going about God's orphan work.

I've got more to say about this, but it's nearly 5 in the morning and I'm going to bed.

But two more things:

As an addenda to my previous blog about who "hired" Puello to "advise" the New Lifers, we have this from the New York Times now:

Asked about the judge’s decision to delay the Americans’ release, Louis Gary Lissade, a lawyer for one detainee, voiced frustration. “My client never chose Mr. Puello,” said Mr. Lissade, a former Haitian minister of justice who represents Jim Allen. “In fact, I don’t even know whether anyone chose Mr. Puello to represent the group.”

Which again, brings up the question: why did Puello approach the Idaho families and offer his services? Did he already have an in with some of them, particularly Sean Lankford, whose daughter Charisa had traveled to DR and Haiti several times with Laura Silsby and may have known him from previous trips? Was it a cover for his own role in the kidjacking? Did he think he'd make a nifty bundle from the church folks who saw Puello as God's unfolding in their lives?

Finally, for a good read on the case from a non-adoption angle check out Twelfth Bough who has an intriguing theory that Puello, who claimed to be "president of the Sephardic community" in DR, was running people through Chabad. I have to mull that over a bit.

Jorge Puello: Not a lawyer after all

For my initial report on Jorge Puello, please go directly below this entry.

The Associated Press and CBS News reported Friday afternoon that Jorge Puello, "legal adviser" to the New Life adoption traffickers, as suspected, has no license to practice law in The Dominican Republic. AP reporter Frank Bajak writes:

Jorge Puello, who has been a high-profile advocate for the American Baptists as they navigate the Haitian justice system, is in apparent violation of Dominican law for failing to register with the local bar association or obtain a license, said Jose Parra, vice president of the Dominican Lawyers Association.

Parra said his organization was still investigating the situation and might file a complaint with the Justice Department, which could pursue criminal charges.

Last night I asked some questions about Puello's relationship to CVBC and Laura Silisby. I was particularly interested in whether Puello and Silsby had a pre-quake relationship (about what?) which would have greased the way for Puello to slide in and "advise" the prisoners, their families, and their churches.

We now have this small statement from Sean Lankford, whose wife Corinna and daughter Nichole are being held in Haiti, which suggests that either the folks in Idaho are just plumb dumb or that they had reason to trust Puello, sight unseen. (my emphasis).

Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and daughter are among those detained, said Puello provided his services for free.

"He's really shown himself to be completely trustworthy, and I truly believe he has done everything to help our people and to help us," he said in a telephone interview from Idaho.

Lankford said Puello contacted relatives of the Americans to volunteer his services.

This contradicts Thursday's Times report:

But other lawyers for the detainees said that the families had wired Mr. Puello $12,000 to pay for the Americans’ transportation out of Haiti if they were released, and that they had been told by Mr. Puello in a conference call late Tuesday that he needed an additional $36,000. Mr. Puello said that he had not participated in a conference call.

While the names of "other lawyers" (i.e., real lawyers) went unmentioned, they are attorneys from the pro bono Christian advocacy organization Liberty Legal Institute headquartered in Plano, Texas and WilmerHale, the K-Street multinational firm Liberty Legal signed up to spring Amarillo contractor Jim Allen and probably Allen's inlaws, Eastside Baptist Church pastor Paul Thompson and Silas "Buck" Thompson."

The Dream Team is (co)headed by Reginald J. Brown, (right) Vice Chair of the firm's Public Policy and Strategy Group. Brown has a long list of very high profile government and multinational clients, is a former board member of Hewlett-Packard (them again!) and is a former special assistant to George W. Bush. The other co-leader is WilmerHale partner Jennifer O'Connor, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the United States Department of Labor under the first Bush, and former special assistant to Bill Clinton. Allen's attorneys have issued a statement that Puello does not represent Allen. I hope to write more about Liberty Legal, Jim Allen, and his attorneys this weekend.

These are not lawyers to be trifled with, and Puello is a trifle.

It looks like he's laying low--hiding out from Interpol who has a warrant on him, the Salvadoran National Police who want his fingerprints, and Judge Bernard Saint-Vil who's investigating him. Oh, and Homeland Security is looking into him. The Idaho folks must be having cats the size of mastodons.

The Puello Consultation website has been taken down. When the AP attempted to contact him yesterday:

...Puello declined to comment in a brief telephone interview, saying he would be busy in court representing a U.S. firm seeking to establish a business in the Dominican Republic. He could not be located in court and did not return later phone calls.

An emotional Puello, did, however, give a short and bizarre interview earlier in the day with ABC News denying that he had done anything wrong An incurious ABC news gatherer (or to be nice, maybe a news editor cut the meat out, but we doubt it) reports the following:

But Jorge Puello denies any wrong doing and told us one reason he took the missionaries' case is because he knows what it's like to be falsely accused.

"If I had somebody that would have done what I did for them, I would not be in this big mess that I have for past years. So that's why this case touch me.

What is he talking about? Puello was only "falsely accused" after he took the missionaries' case, or else he's been "falsely accused" before. And if so, when and what for? Or maybe he's a time traveler.

Ed Murrow must be spinning out of control.

Addeenda:

Who is Jorge Puello?

I've been curious about Jorge Puello since his name appeared about 10 days ago as the legal adviser for the New Lifers. Puello made a big splat on CNN when he complained about the severe conditions under which his clients were jailed: "No air conditioning! No Electricity! Very disturbing!"

According to news reports Puello was hired by Laura Silby's church, Central Valley Baptist, after either the church or Laura Silsby and her gang rejected the attorney (or attorneys) recommended by American Consular Services. Puello, in turn, hired Haitian attorney Edwin Coq to represent the detainees, even though Coq speaks Creole and no English. What to make of that nonsense?

Last week, according to whose story you believe, Puello fired Coq, claiming that the Haitian had demanded a $60,000 fee and attempted to bribe the prisoners back to the US. Coq denied the accusation, and said he quit because the families back in Idaho never sent him the $60,000 he needed to take the case. Sources inside of Haiti who know Coq claim that he is an "honest young lawyer" and refused to believe Puello's claim. Coq has complained to the press that Puello has ruined his reputation.

Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time looking for information on Jorge Puello. I could find no listing for him as a Dominican attorney. What I did find was Puello Consulting/Abogados Consultores, operated by Jorge Puello and his brother Alejandro, located at Avenida Duarte 359, in Santo Domingo.

The company's webpage, describes the firm:

Puello Consulting is a Firm of Attorneys, Notaries & Business Consultants that renders full legal services specialized in commercial, corporate and business fields providing the counseling with the “legal insight with business instinct” required for individuals and companies decision makers in the Dominican Republic or in other countries with Law Firms correspondents.

Established in 2005, has earned a solid reputation in successfully offering personalized professional services of the highest quality with a winning attitude and determination for customer satisfaction which has distinguished us in the legal and business marketplace.

This intro is followed by a long laundry list of legal services: including acquisitions, mergers and alliances, banking and finance, consumer protection and antitrust, corporate services, collections, family law, immigration and naturalization, intellectual property, trade, investment, taxes, public and private contracting, real estate, and trust.

Not a word about criminal law--domestic or international. And no word anywhere of how CVBC hooked up with Puello, and why it would hire what appears to be a civil law outsourcer with no criminal law section to take on a high profile international incident. It only got curiouser and curiouser with the hiring of Coq and the dust-up that followed.

Bernard Saint-Vil, the presiding judge in the New Life case, is curious, too. According to the February 11, 2010 New York Times, he plans to open an inquiry into Puello's activities after learning that police in El Salvador are investigating whether Puello heads a trafficking ring involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls.

Picking up from the NYT:

The head of the Salvadoran border police, Commissioner Jorge Callejas, said in a telephone interview that he was investigating accusations that a man with a Dominican passport that identified him as Jorge Anibal Torres Puello led a human trafficking ring that recruited Dominican women and under-age Nicaraguan girls by offering them jobs and then putting them to work as prostitutes in El Salvador.

Mr. Puello said he did not even have a passport. When Mr. Callejas was shown a photograph taken in Haiti of Mr. Puello, Mr. Callejas said he thought it showed the man he was seeking. He said he would try to arrest Mr. Puello on suspicion of luring women into prostitution and taking explicit photographs of them that were then posted on Internet sites. “It’s him, the same beard and face,” Mr. Callejas said in an interview on Thursday. “It has to be him.”

Judge Saint-Vil also said he thought that the photo of the trafficking suspect in a Salvadoran police file appeared to be the same man he had met in court. He said he intended to begin his own investigation into whether a trafficking suspect had been working with the Americans detained in Haiti.

“I was skeptical of him because he arrived with four bodyguards, and I have never seen that from a lawyer,” the judge said in an interview. “I plan to get to the bottom of this right away.”

The judge said he would request assistance from the Department of Homeland Security to look into Mr. Puello’s background. A spokesman for the department said American officials were playing a supporting role in the investigation surrounding the Americans, providing “investigative support as requested.”

That Puello, has no passport is an odd circumstance for a man who claims to have a large law practice with international commercial clients. In fact, there is some doubt if Puello is actually a lawyer. The NYT, verifying my own research, says that records in the College of Lawyers in the DR has no one with his name listed.

Again from the article:

Mr. Puello said he had a law license and was part of a 45-member law firm. But his office in Santo Domingo turned out to be a humble place, which could not possibly fit 45 lawyers. Mr. Puello’s brother Alejandro said that the firm had another office in the central business district, but he declined to provide an address. (NOTE: the article does not say if the "humble office" was located at Duarte or another location)

Mr. Puello said in the interview that he had been representing the Americans free of charge because he was a religious man who commiserated with their situation. “I’m president of the Sephardic Jewish community in the Dominican Republic,” he said. “I help people in this kind of situation. We’re not going to charge these people a dime.”

But other lawyers for the detainees said that the families had wired Mr. Puello $12,000 to pay for the Americans’ transportation out of Haiti if they were released, and that they had been told by Mr. Puello in a conference call late Tuesday that he needed an additional $36,000. Mr. Puello said that he had not participated in a conference call.

Even if Puello is found to be the wrong man in the Salvadoran investigation, there are still questions:

• Is Jorge Puello a lawyer?

• Why did Central Valley Baptist Church reject consular recommendations and hire what appears to be a outsourcer with seeingly no criminal expertise to defend its members?

• Why did Puello hire a Haitian lawyer who couldn't communicate in any meaningful way with his clients and then accuse the lawyer of attempting to bribe the court,

• Did Puello and Laura Silsby have a legal or personal pre-earthquake relationship, which led CVBC to hire him as legal adviser; possibly a relationship regarding the leasing of the Puerto Plata Diocese-owned Education and Training Center in Cabarete that was to be converted into the temporary New Life Children's Refuge?

• Was Puello involved in the attempt to move the "orphans" across the border?

• Why is Puello lying about being paid by the New Lifers? (And I believe he is lying)

• Who is paying Puello and who is funding the defense?
  

And, if Puello is the right man:

• Did he plan to traffick the children?

Or...

• is this a simple matter of scavengers scavenging scavengers?