Haitian ex-mayor found guilty of lying about rights abuses to get US residency
Source: Associated Press
Haitian ex-mayor found guilty of lying about rights abuses to get US residency
By MICHAEL CASEY
Updated 3:08 PM EDT, March 28, 2025
BOSTON (AP) — A former mayor from Haiti was found guilty on Friday for lying on his visa application about a series of politically motivated attacks against his opponents that left one dead and several people injured.
Jean Morose Viliena, who has been living just north of Boston in the city of Malden, Massachusetts, was indicted in 2023 on three counts of visa fraud. Authorities say he wrote on his application that he had not “ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people.”
Federal prosecutors said that while Viliena was mayor of the town of Les Irois — an isolated, rural community of about 22,000 on Haiti’s western tip — he committed “violent atrocities” against his political foes. The impoverished community is only accessible by a dirt road that winds through the mountains. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
In 2007, prosecutors said, Viliena led a group of his allies to the home of a political opponent, where he and his associates shot and killed the opponent’s younger brother, then smashed his skull with a rock.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/haiti-mayor-human-rights-abuse-visa-9e2fe4c76f9fb6a8f90dc8fe173112db