SUN Correx -update: Info Below Links Salvadoran wanted trafficker to DR 'lawyer' for jailed Baptists in Haiti

I have corrected a few typos in an earlier post (Sat Update) and will add some additional information here regarding the man known as Jorge Torres Avila Puello -- now identified as Jorge Torres Orellana, wanted in El Salvador (- see below).

Late Saturday/early Sun updates include:

From the Miami Herald: Jorge Anibal Torres Puello's mother and stepfather confirmed to reporters that their son is the Interpol suspect wanted for trafficking in El Salvador. That man is also known as Jorge Torres Orellana in Salvador.

The Miami Herald story also reports that Puello/Orellana served time in the United States for bank fraud. He was charged in Miami in 1999 for having fake documents.(

See my blog update (below, with typos fixed) about Puello/Orellana's Miami-based non-profit corporation). In the Herald story, his mother confirms that he was born in Yonkers, NY - (though the Interpol bulletin being circulated states his birthplace as El Salvador.)

The Herald story also quotes stepfather Franco Cerminara as saying that Puello/Orellana 'had no intention of taking the children to the United States, but to a church in the Dominican Republic where space had already been leased.' He also went with his stepson to take food to the jailed Baptists in Haiti.

(Note: Laura Silsby actually leased a 45 room ex-hotel from the Catholic diocese in the Dominican Republic that was to be used as a provisional orphanage not a church), a fact published a while back in the Listin Diario (see below).

(Again - the question: Why? Why would Puello do this? Mr. Cerminara's comments seem to suggest that Puello was somehow involved in the orphanage plan, unless I am misreading the Herald story).

My own information/leads reveal more Dominican contacts who were helping Silsby. Did any of them have contact with Puello related to the Silsby orphange project before the arrest date?

Several Haiti Vox blog readers are sharing their leads and questions about the Silsby group case with me. One of them tonight revealed his interest in knowing more about a man who is identified as a DENTIST in the Wall Street Journal and now the Herald story. His name is Rob Chenvert.

This man earlier identified himself on a blog discussion board (which has recently been removed) as a good friend and business partner to Laura Silsby in the setting up of her orphange.

Online search reveals that Chenvert is a real estate agent with the firm North Coast Realty. He shows condominiums, villas and commercial property, including properties in Cabarete. (Note that Jorge Puella and Puella Consulting also had real estate business). The current website of North Coast Realty list four agents, but not Chenvert. It would certainly make sense that Chenvert's team was helping Silsby find a property for her orphanage.

In my earlier blog post, I noted that the Associated Press had mentioned that Jose Hidalgo was the real estate agent who brokered the deal between the Dominican Catholic Church's Bishop Julio César Amaro Corniel and Laura Silsby. He reportedly looked for a few to find the deal for Silsby.

The Catholics leased forty-five rooms of their Education and Training Center located in the town of Cabarete on the northern province of Puerto Plata to the organization New Life Children's Refuge. Silsby also bought land in the hamlet of Yagua Magante section of the town of Gaspar Hernandez, Espaillat province.


Clearly both men - Chenvert and Hidalgo - are fellow realtors working in Sosua, a popular destination on the North Coast that is touted the Acapulco of the Dominican Republic.

Do/did Chenvert help contact Hidalgo to put together the lease deal for Silsby? I hope to find out. What, if any, dealings did either of them have with Puello related to the orphanage plan? Was this prior to the Silsby group arrest? If YES, then there would be some suggestion that Puello WAS involved prior to showing up with food and an offer to help the Baptists - critical information sought by the Haitian magistrate.

Meanwhile, online forum comments by Dominican Legal Blogs (posts by Dominican and expat lawyers) reveal the mattter-of-fact view that "Puello is a buscone (fixer) who had probably been hired previously by the Baptists....to work the DR-side of their enterprises."

Of course, given how politically and legally hot - i.e., potentially damaging - this information could be, I can't imagine Dominican realtors keen to talking to the press or anyone about Puello. Still, I urge those of you reading this to dig around and let me know what you find...

In the (now-removed email commentary, realtor Chenvert wrote a defense of Silsby claiming:

"After reading all of these comments, it would be interesting to know if any poster has personal knowledge of Ms. Silsby's activity in the Dominican Republic. Fact not conjecture. I do. My partner and I have worked with her for 8 months in the preliminary stages of the development of the facility she plans to build here in the DR to help children from this country as well as Haiti. It has certainly seemed to us that her intentions have been and are completely genuine."

Other updates:

From an online post at The Awareness Center: Jorge Torres Orellana was/is said to daven (pray) at the Chabad in the Dominican Republic, according to a posting at the website of this Jewish coalition against sexual assault.

Haitian views and possible action:

The Haitian magistrate overseeing the jailed Haitian baptist case said Saturday that he would separate the facts related to Mr. Orellana from the case of the Silsby missionary group -- unless new informatoin emerged suggesting a link. Right now, Bernard St-Vil said, "At this point, the two cases have nothing to do with each other." His remarks were made in a telephone interview with a Wall Street Journal reporter and published in a recent update.

The WSJ story quotes Isaac Rudman of the Israelite Center of the Dominican Republic saying he met Mr. Puello "two or three years back" - and Puello introduced himself as Jorge Torres. (This would seem in sync with more recent information that he attends the Chabad in the DR....)

The WSJ article also says that Laura Silsby incorporated her New Life orphanage in the Dominican Republic through Jose Altagracia Ovando.

It also quotes a Kansas lawyer, Caleb Stegall, one of several US lawyers retained by relatives of the jailed missionaries is dismissing any claim that Puello/Torres/Orellana represented Silsby's group, saying Puello "... does not represent them, never has, and is no longer part of the case, if he ever was."


(It must be noted, however, that prior media reports quoted Drew Ham, the assistant pastor at the Meridian church that is affiliated with the New Life Children’s Refuge, as saying that he was contacted by Puella after the arrest. He then 'googled' Puello before hiring him to legally represent Laura Silsby and her group in Haiti.)

However, we have since learned that Puello – aka Orellana – was/is not a registered lawyer in either the Dominican Republic OR Salvador.


So now - no surprise - some fast legal backpedaling is taking place to distance the Silsby group from the Salvadoran-Dominican trafficker.

Still, the important question remains: How or WHY and via WHO did Puello, (aka Orellana, a wanted sex trafficker), reach out to Drew Ham in Meridien, Idaho, to offer his services? He initially offered free services, but later, money was wired,so there is some financial incentive, one could argue.

But why would a man hunted by Interpol risk global scrutiny and possible exposure by putting himself in the middle of an internationally controversial affair?

If Puello/Orellana has evaded arrest this long, he can't be that naive or stupid. Clearly concern for children or Haiti is not the reason. It suggests some other motivation. A possible prior connection? That's what many people assume. It all appears just too odd - too fraught - to be a random coincidence. Particularly if Silsby was working for eight months with Dominican realtors to set up her orphanage project there.

Wanted Interpol Suspect:
Interpol has had an arrest bulletin out for Jorge Orellana. The agency said he was born Oct. 15, 1977 in Huizcar, La Libertad, in El Salvador (Note: below, you'll see he is said to have possibly three nationalities, including US and Dominican). His Interpol description says he has black hair, blue eyes and is 66 inches high and weighs 152 pounds.

FROM MY EARLER POST (posted at 7 pm Sat eve. - typos corrected here...)
As earlier readers of this blog know, the global hunt is on for a man known as Jorge Torres Orellana who is wanted in El Salvador – and in the US – on charges of sex trafficking and running an online sex ring network. He is thought to be Jorge Torres Avila Puello = Jorge Anibal Torres Puello - the man posing as a Dominican lawyer who was representing the group of American Baptist missionaries led by Laura Lavonne Silsby who are still in jail in Haiti.

Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal added a few details to the emerging information about the Salvadoran suspect (he has at least three nationalities: American, Dominican and Salvadoran), who has – not surprisingly – disappeared from the scene in the Dominican Republic – or Haiti.

Meanwhile, readers of this blog have been in touch too, and helped me to track down pieces of the puzzle that are important, such as: did Laura Silsby’s group know Puello before her arrest in Haiti?

(Her colleague, Drew Ham at the Idaho church in Meridian, claims 'No.') Was the Salvadoran trafficker in touch with Dominican officials in the Immigration division or Catholic officials who rented Silsby her hotel in the Domincan Republic for use as a transitional orphanage, etc?

A special THANK YOU to those readers who are sharing their information with me. Mesi Anpil – on behalf of Haitians who I know are extremely interested in getting to the bottom of this increasingly bizarre affair…

Below you will find new information that confirms the two men – Orellana and Puello - definitely appear to be one and the same.

This information also places Orellana/Puello in MIAMI, where he – and his life partner (now in jail) and other families members were listed with a Miami-based Sephardic named non-profit corporation that appears to have been linked to a prostitution /online escort recruiting service.

NEW INFORMATION: The MIAMI connection…

As I’ve posted earlier in this blog, and many media reports have confirmed, Jorge Puello claimed to be President of the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish community in the Dominican Republic. Below is a copy of information about a REGISTERED NON-PROFIT CORPORATION in FLORIDA called the SEPHARDIC ORTHODOX JEWISH COUNCIL OF AMERICA that lists Jorge Torres as its President, his jailed life partner as Vice-President, and another relative with the last name Orellana, as Treasurer.

The address linked to this corporation appears to be a Mailbox. It seems that this corporation was likely a front for the Escort/prostitution ring that Orellano and his relatives have been running.

An internet search has yielded this information:

A non-profit corporation registered in Florida on March 16, 2009 as the SEPHARDIC ORTHODOX JEWISH COUNCIL OF AMERICA

Officers:
President: Jorge Torres, Jr.

Vice President: Ana Ramirez (this is the name of Jorge Orellana’s life partner, now in JAIL in El Salvador on sex trafficking conviction – see last night’s blog)

Treasurer: Esther Orellana

Their Miami address: 1460 NW 107th Ave, Ste R.

SALVADORAN CONNECTION:

There are several URL LINKS for ESCORT SERVICES in EL SALVADOR that law enforcement officials link to the Orellana group. The ads are RECRUITMENT ads for erotic ESCORTS who will be paid $1000 for their services. I will not post these links here, but will share them with Haitian/US/Salvadoran law enforcement authorities, as requested.

CRITICAL PENDING QUESTIONS....

Clearly, there's plenty of evidence that Laura Silsby's group had an active team of Dominicans workign for many months to help her set up her project.

One still has to ask: WHO in the DR helped Silsby get her purported 'authorization' papers to bring Haitian children across the border - the Dominican side? Someone was helping her. Was that person Puello aka the trafficker Orellana? Was he Silsby's 'fixer?' in the DR? - a man with lots of connections who helped her cut through red tape there - never mind Haiti?

Stay tuned…