Former mayor from Haiti gets prison time for lying to get into the U.S.
CONCORD, N.H. — A former mayor from Haiti convicted of lying about his violent past on his visa application was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison and three years of supervision, after which he will be subject to deportation proceedings.
Jean Morose Viliena, of Malden, Massachusetts, was the mayor of Les Irois, Haiti, from December 2006 until February 2010. He was convicted of three counts of visa fraud in March and sentenced Friday in federal court in Boston.
'For more than a decade, he lived freely and comfortable in this country while the victims of his brutality lived in fear, exile and pain,' U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in statement. 'Today's sentence brings a measure of justice for the lives he shattered and sends a clear message: the United States will not be a safe have for human rights abusers.'
According to prosecutors, Viliena committed 'violent atrocities' against his political foes in an isolated, rural community of about 22,000 residents on Haiti's western tip. In 2007, he was accused of leading 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.
In 2008, Viliena and his allies went armed with guns, machetes, picks and sledgehammers to shut down a community radio station that he opposed, prosecutors said. Authorities said he pistol-whipped and punched a man and ordered an associate to shoot and kill the man and another person.
Both survived, but one of the men lost a leg and the other was blinded in one eye.
When he applied for a visa to enter the U.S., however, Viliena denied having 'ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people.' He later received a permanent resident card and has raised a child who is a U.S. citizen by birth, prosecutors said.
Defence attorneys argued in court that it was members of a rival political party — including some who they say are government witnesses — who committed the violence. They described the former mayor as the son of a farmer who became a teacher and eventually ran for mayor to improve conditions in town.
In 2023, Viliena was found liable by an American jury in a civil trial in connection with the killing and the two attempted killings and assessed US$15.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Holly Ramer, The Associated Press
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