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Female gang rapists at MCI-Framingham may never face charges, thanks to their alleged victim's deportation to Haiti, her lawyer says.

``It was supposedly investigated, but I don't know that anything's happened. I think probably nothing has happened,'' defense attorney John Palmer said yesterday of the state's probe of the alleged brutal broomstick attack on illegal alien Danerge Pascal, 38.

At Pascal's sentencing Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Moore if he wanted to question Pascal while she was still on U.S. soil about the alleged rape by three inmates in the shower of the women's prison in late December.

Moore declined. He told the Herald that Pascal, a convicted con artist with a dozen aliases who didn't report the alleged sexual assault for more than a month, refused to cooperate with investigators.

``The government never took the position that the rape didn't occur. The evidence wasn't there,'' Moore said. ``The defendant (Pascal) did not avail herself of the opportunity to demonstrate that it did occur.''

``It's just an awful, awful story,'' Palmer said. ``It was one of those cases that, in a perfect world, one would think the prosecutorial arm of our government might exercise better discretion on how to handle.''

Diane Wiffin, spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction, argued Pascal's ``situation was fully investigated'' and was found credible enough to warrant referral to Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley's office by DOC. Wiffin could not say when that referral was made. Pascal was ultimately moved to another prison. But after repeated checks, Coakley's spokeswoman, Emily LaGrassa, said it appeared her office had not been notified of Pascal's plight.

Pascal says she has been a lifelong punching bag. She alleges she was sexually abused by her father as a child and gang raped by four men during a 2000 home invasion after she was first deported home to Haiti in 1998. That deportation followed her conviction here for credit card fraud.

Authorities learned on Nov. 25, 2004, that Pascal had re-entered this country illegally when Boston police questioned the then-Newton resident about a fender bender and found she had outstanding warrants for public assistance fraud and larceny. On April 18, Pascal, insisting she came back to build a life with her two daughters, pled guilty to a federal indictment charging her with illegal re-entry.

She remained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Boston last night. Her daughters, 7 and 12, will remain in the U.S. with family after her deportation.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 15, 2005 - Eighteen candidates have registered to run for president, and more last-minute hopefuls were expected to come forward Thursday _ the deadline to participate in the Nov. 20 elections.

The election will be the country's first since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power following a violent uprising in February 2004. It was also the last day to register to vote, but the deadline has been extended several times amid violence that has paralyzed the country.

He should be in jail for murder, terrorism ... Former President Rene Preval, left, listens to a supporter during his arrival at the electoral council's headquarters 'CEP' in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Sept.15, 2005. Preval registered today as presidential candidate for the ESPWA's party. The Nov. 20 election will be the country's first since Aristide was forced from power, and more than two dozen candidates have registered to replace him. (AP Photo/Evens Sanon)

Most of the registered candidates so far are officials from past regimes. The Provisional Electoral Council has barred the candidacy of the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a prominent figure in Aristide's Lavalas Family party, because he is in prison and can't register in person.

Those who have registered to run for president include former President Leslie Manigat, who was ousted by the army in 1988 after five months in power; Evans Paul, a former mayor of Port-au-Prince who was arrested and tortured several times under former dictatorships; and former Sen. Paul Denis, who headed a committee investigating corruption in Aristide's government.

The list also featured Guy Philippe, a former soldier who helped lead the rebellion that toppled Aristide; Hubert Deronceray, a minister in the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship who has run for the presidency four times; and Marc Bazin, who served as prime minister after Aristide was ousted the first time, in 1991.

Radio newscasts said former President Rene Preval and Dumarsais Simeus, a wealthy U.S. businessman who was born in Haiti, were expected to register before the end of the day.

The deadline has been postponed several times, amid the politically related violence that has claimed more than 1,000 lives since Aristide was forced into exile.

Some 2.2 million people, about half of those eligible, have registered to vote. A Jan. 3 runoff will follow if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 15, 2005 - A crowded presidential field grew more diverse Thursday as a wealthy U.S. businessman registered his candidacy for the first election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from power following a violent rebellion in February 2004.

Dumarsais Simeus, who is the owner of a Texas-based food processing company but was born in Haiti, registered on the final day to become a presidential candidate _ joining a field that includes a leader of the rebellion that ousted Aristide and a wide range of former government officials.

"I am deeply grateful to the people of Haiti for the enormous outpouring of support, goodwill and love we have received," said the 65-year-old multimillionaire, who has said he wants to use his business savvy to help resurrect the economy of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

"In all that I have done, I have always been successful. I'm a perpetual winner, and I will win these elections," Simeus said.

The Nov. 20 election will be the country's first since Aristide was forced from power, and more than two dozen candidates have registered to replace him. Additional hopefuls were expected to emerge by the end of Thursday, the deadline to register with the Provisional Electoral Council. Candidates were also registering for legislative seats.

Radio newscasts said former President Rene Preval and Dumarsais Simeus, a wealthy U.S. businessman who was born in Haiti, were expected to register before the end of the day.

The deadline has been postponed several times, amid the politically related violence that has claimed more than 1,000 lives since Aristide was forced into exile.

Some 2.2 million people, about half of those eligible, have registered to vote. A Jan. 3 runoff will follow if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 14, 2005 - The party of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been barred from registering a jailed Catholic priest as its presidential candidate.

Gerard Jean-Juste was arrested two months ago on suspicion of involvement in the murder of journalist Jacques Roche. He denies the accusations.

The Lavalas Family party said it would challenge the ban in court and warned it could boycott the November poll.

allege terrorist behind bars.jpg (10074 bytes)

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CAPTURED Where allege terrorist, Gerard Jean-Juste, belongs to, say many. When will primitive tyrant Aristide share a jail cell with him, they also ask.

Supporters or footsoldiers of allege terrorist Gerard Jean-Juste/ Please see also: Blacks hit hardest by costlier mortgages

Mr Aristide - who is in exile since being ousted in 2004 - still has many supporters, particularly in the poorer areas of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

'Unconstitutional' Hundreds of his supporters tried to march to the electoral council on Tuesday, to back Mr Jean-Juste's candidacy, but were stopped by UN peacekeepers and Haitian police.

The Lavalas Family party was told by the electoral authorities that the jailed priest had to register his candidacy in person.

But Louis Gerard Gilles - a former senator - said the electoral council had no authority to stop the registration.

"Nothing in the constitution requires he should be present in person," Mr Gilles said.

The party says Mr Jean-Juste's detention is an attempt to keep it from taking part in the elections, Haiti's first since Mr Aristide was ousted in February 2004.

Mr Jean-Juste has not been charged and says he was in Miami at the time of the killing.

Haiti has been riven by gang warfare and political violence, especially in Port-au-Prince, where supporters and opponents of the exiled Mr Aristide regularly fight bloody battles.

SEPT. 13, 2005 - It's been more than a decade, but one woman still hears the tiny voice that broke through the silence after she was brutally raped by paramilitary officers in Haiti.

The mother survived the 1994 attack in Haiti to become a plaintiff in a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against the soldiers' leader, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, a former strongman who once boasted that voodoo and the CIA shielded him from trouble.

She and two other immigrants now living in the United States claim Constant sanctioned systematic rape to silence dissent. The women insist on anonymity out of fear of reprisals against their families in Haiti.

The 40-year-old mother's story differs in one dramatic way: She bore the son of one of her attackers.

Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant, a former strongman who once boasted that voodoo and the CIA shielded him from trouble, gestures during a press conference in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in this file photo of Sept. 22, 1994. A lawsuit brought by three Hatian immigrants in Manhattan federal court against Constant - who now lives in the Queens borough of New York - claims he sanctioned systematic rape to silence dissent against a right-wing regime. (AP Photo/John McConnico, File) Bring a 'Qui Tam' lawsuit against former tyrant Aristide and others

"I need to demand justice," she said in a telephone interview arranged by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability. Of Constant, she said, "I blame him personally for making my family live in misery."

Lawyers for the alleged rape victims plan to ask a U.S. district court judge in the coming weeks to enter a default judgment against Constant, 47, because he has ignored the case since being served a complaint in January. That would open the door for a hearing to determine damages.

Constant has lived in exile in New York City since slipping into the United States in 1994. He reportedly sometimes stays at the home of an aunt and works for a mortgage broker. He did not respond to messages left at both locations; court records contain no name for a lawyer.

Despite a 1995 deportation order, Constant has been allowed to remain in the United States because Haiti's judicial system has never stabilized enough to ensure he would be treated fairly, said State Department spokesman Steve Pike.

"We'll continue to evaluate his status to determine when his removal to Haiti would be prudent," Pike said.

A 6-foot-4-inch son of a military officer, Constant emerged as the feared leader of a right-wing paramilitary group, the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, or FRAPH, after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency was toppled in 1991. Human rights groups allege that between 1991 and 1994, FRAPH terrorized and slaughtered slum-dwellers loyal to Aristide.

Constant once boasted that he was a paid informant for the CIA. He also claimed he had the power of voodoo in him.

Speaking through an interpreter in Creole, the woman who also was brutally beaten recounted her ordeal.

Her husband, a taxi driver, made the mistake of campaigning for Aristide's return, putting up posters of him on telephone poles around their impoverished neighborhood in the capital of Port-au-Prince. He was arrested in 1992, then vanished forever.

Anguished, she stood outside her home, crying and cursing the military. She "wouldn't shut up about it," she said, until soldiers decided to retaliate.

There was a beating and a brief jailing. But the real horror began with a knock at her door on April 19, 1994. Five men entered, accosted her and took turns raping her in front of her three small children.

Three months later, the soldiers returned, again raping her and severely beating her 8-year-old son. The family fled to the hills above Port-au-Prince, where the woman fell ill. A doctor stunned her with the news she was pregnant.

She considered an abortion. The doctor convinced her she was too sick to survive it. She had a healthy boy who blended into the family. But he now has questions about his father, and a mother reluctant to answer them.

"He deserves to know and understand, but he's still too young to explain everything," she said.

Once Aristide was restored to power in 2001, the woman was able to visit the United States on a tourist visa. Yet another government overthrow in Haiti last year made returning too risky, so she applied for political asylum.

She wept when asked if she missed her children, now under the care of relatives in Haiti. Her thoughts are especially with the one born of brutality.

"I love my son, very, very much," she said. "He's no different to me than any of my others, except that I always pray a little bit harder for him."

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 12, 2005 - A judge Monday ordered the release of a Haitian and an American journalist who were arrested as they covered a police search of the church of a jailed priest who is a potential presidential candidate.

Kevin Pina, of Oakland, Calif., was reporting for a U.S. radio program and Haitian Jean Ristil was working for The Associated Press. After spending the weekend in jail, they were freed without being charged by the judge who had ordered their arrest at the church of the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste.

"I thank all the media for the formidable solidarity they showed," Pina told reporters outside the jail.

Pina was detained after filming the police as they searched the church. Ristil was taken into custody as he tried to photograph the arrest of the American.

They were taken to a police station where Judge Jean Perez Paul ordered them held on suspicion of "disrespect to a magistrate" and resisting arrest.

Perez Paul had said Pina struck him as officers tried to remove the reporter from the church - an allegation that the journalist denies.

The journalists and a few others went to the St. Claire church in a poor neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on Friday after learning that police were searching the building. Officials refused to disclose reason for the operation, but police at the scene said they were looking for weapons.

While questioning the journalists Monday, the judge repeated his charge that Pina had hit him and threatened to lock both men up in Haiti's National Penitentiary unless they apologized. He later made them sign a written transcript of the five-hour interrogation before freeing them.

"I release you, even though I still think you showed disrespect to me," Perez Paul said.

In a letter to Haiti's justice minister on Monday, the head of the Association of Haitian Journalists questioned the judge's decision to arrest Pina and Ristil.

"How can it be a form of disrespect to a magistrate for a journalist to exercise his constitutional rights against a judge who wants to deny them?" Joseph Guyler Delva wrote.

Jean-Juste, a supporter of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has been held since July on suspicion of involvement in the slaying of a well-known journalist, Jacques Roche. Jean-Juste, who has not been charged, denies the allegations.

The Roman Catholic priest is considered a possible presidential candidate for the Lavalas Family party of Aristide in Nov. 20 elections.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 11, 2005 - A Haitian and American journalist were detained Friday by police searching the church of a jailed priest who is considered a potential presidential candidate.

Kevin Pina, a journalist and filmmaker from the United States, was detained after filming the police as they searched the church of the Rev Jean-Juste.

Haitian journalist Jean Ristil, right, and American journalist Kevin Pina, left, speak behind their prison cell at the Delmas 33 Police Station in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005. Pina was detained Friday after filming the police as they searched the church of jailed priest Rev. Jean-Juste who is considered a potential presidential candidate. Ristil, who was working for The Associated Press, was detained as he tried to photograph the arrest. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

The officers also detained Jean Ristil, a Haitian who was working for The Associated Press, as he tried to take photographs of police leading away a handcuffed Pina.

Both men were taken to the police station where Judge Jean Peres Paul ordered them held on suspicion of "disrespect to a magistrate" and resisting arrest.

The judge said the Haitian journalist would probably be freed by Monday, though he did not explain the reasons, and would not say when Pina would be released.

Peres Paul, an investigative judge who ordered the search and was there during the operation, said Pina struck him as officers tried to remove the reporter from the church. The journalist denies striking the judge.

Pina has been reporting from Haiti for 10 years for Flashpoints, a daily programme produced by radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California, and distributed to other stations by the Pacifica Radio Network, said Dennis Bernstein, the show's executive producer.

A Haitian attorney has gone to the police station in an attempt to secure his release, Bernstein said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 11, 2005 - The European Union (EU) plans to lift economic sanctions against Haiti by early next month, EU officials said yesterday.

EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said the final decision on lifting the aid restrictions is expected by early October. He said the 25 EU governments are currently discussing the details of a proposal made by the European Commission in August to lift restrictions against the Caribbean nation.

Earlier yesterday, the EU spokesman in Haiti, Vincenzo Collarino, said sanctions had already been lifted. He later said that he had misspoken.

The EU's head office suggested the restrictions be lifted after Haiti's interim government made commitments on elections and other democratic reforms to the EU's Development Commissioner Louis Michel when he visited Haiti in March.

The EU in January 2001 froze payments to Haiti after allegedly flawed elections, claiming the government of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide wasn't complying with the "democratic principles" of the Cotonou Agreement, which governs the EU's relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific nations.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug. 5, 2005 - The party of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Monday named a jailed Roman Catholic priest as its candidate for Haiti's president in elections this fall.

Meanwhile, Haiti's electoral commission said that presidential and legislative elections will take place on Nov. 20 scheduled instead of earlier in the month to give voters more time to register.

Aristide's Lavalas Family party said it would register the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste as its standard bearer next week, apparently ending a heated internal feud over whether to participate in elections â€” the first since the bloody February 2004 uprising that helped topple Aristide.

"Even if he is in jail, we will register him," Rene Monplaisir, a Lavalas leader in the pro-Aristide slum of Cite Soleil, told cheering supporters in an assembly hall in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Jean-Juste was arrested in July on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and slaying of prominent Haitian journalist Jacques Roche. Jean-Juste, who was in Miami when Roche was killed, has denied involvement.

Lavalas' participation in elections is considered key because the party still enjoys widespread support in Haiti, especially among the vast slums of Port-au-Prince.

SEPT. 5 - The Haitian government has confirmed Nov. 20 will be the date for their presidential elections, with the second round set for Jan. 3, 2006, the local radio Kiseya said Sunday.

The dates were set during a special meeting of the Council of Ministers on Saturday, Kiseya reported.

During the radio interview, Michel Brunache, current President Boniface Alexandre's director of Cabinet, said that the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) will publish on Monday the presidential decree on the coming elections and a candidate-registration brochure.

Over 4 million Haitians are eligible to vote in the elections. They will be asked to select a president, 30 senators and 83 representatives in both houses of the government.

However, only 2.2 million have registered to date, and the deadline for registration is Sept. 15.

Pierre-Richard Duchemin, a CEP member, told the media in Port-au-Prince, the country's capital, on Friday that "only a natural disaster or a very serious political event could lead to the annulment of elections."

Meanwhile, he requested the support of the press to encourage more citizens to register for the vote.

Some 60 political parties and nearly 30 presidential candidates will vie for a place in the new government.

Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide spoke out on the detention of Roman Catholic priest and former Miami activist Gérard Jean-Juste.

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is calling for the release of all jailed members of his Lavalas Family Party, including former Miami activist the Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste. ''He must be freed. All the political prisoners must be freed,'' Aristide said in a statement released by members of his Lavalas Family Party via e-mail.

Aristide, living in exile in South Africa following his February 2004 ouster in the face of a rebellion, made no mention of whether Jean-Juste should run for president in Haiti's upcoming Nov. 6 presidential elections. Jean-Juste was recently quoted as saying he would consider a run -- but only with Aristide's blessing.

The founder of Miami's Haitian Refugee Center, Jean-Juste was arrested in Port-au--Prince on July 21 in the investigation of the slaying of a prominent Haitian journalist.

He was the only individual mentioned by name in Aristide's one-page statement. Yvon Neptune, Aristide's former prime minister, is still being held nearly 15 months after he was arrested on charges he orchestrated a massacre of political opponents. Haitian prosecutors have not said publicly what evidence they have against Jean-Juste or Neptune.

Aristide supporters accuse Haiti's interim government of jailing hundreds -- though Aristide says in his statement there are thousands -- of Lavalas members without formal charges.

''[Jean-Juste's] unlawful detention, alongside the unlawful detention of thousands of political prisoners in Haiti, demonstrates a clear determination to exclude Lavalas or the huge majority of Haitian people from participating in free, fair and democratic elections,'' Aristide said. In order for Haiti to have free, fair and democratic elections -- and not a selection -- Aristide said all Lavalas members who are in jail and in exile must be free to return home, there must be a ''national dialogue'' in Haiti and an end to repression.

Aristide supporters claim they are the target of much of the violence and killings that have swept Haiti in the past year. Opponents complain that they are being targeted by pro-Aristide armed gangs.

''Father Jean-Juste too has echoed this call for dialogue and peace,'' Aristide said. ``Dialogue leading to peace through the restoration of constitutional order - this is the will of the Haitian people. After 200 years of independence it is clear that from this dialogue will emerge a new Haiti.''

A boat full of Haitian migrants with a woman who is about nine months' pregnant was intercepted by the Coast Guard.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a boatload of Haitian migrants Thursday morning, little over a week after they snared another boat of Haitian migrants loaded with $450,000 worth of hashish oil, authorities said.

The Coast Guard would not say where Thursday's migrant boat was stopped, and The Herald was unable to reach the U.S. Border Patrol, which has responsibility for returning them to Haiti.

The boat, carrying 21 migrants, was spotted before 11 a.m., by the Coast Guard Cutter Gannet, based in Fort Lauderdale.

As guardsmen transferred the migrants to the Gannet, a woman who is about nine months pregnant began complaining of pain. She was taken to the Fort Lauderdale Coast Guard Station, according to 7th District Petty Officer Dana Warr. Hollywood Fire Rescue rushed the woman to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood. Her condition was not available Thursday.

If she delivers birth before being returned to Haiti, then by law, she will be allowed to stay in the U.S. with her child. However, it was not known yesterday how close she was to having her baby.

The other migrants will most likely be repatriated, said Zack Mann, senior special agent and spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Mann noted that the other boat that was stopped, on Aug. 24, was carrying more than just people.

The U.S. Customs officers intercepted the 23-foot boat just after midnight, about 9 miles off the coast of Haulover Beach in North Dade. Marine enforcement officers boarded the boat and found $8,920 in U.S. currency and 90 pounds of hashish oil worth more than $450,000.

Officers arrested Jose Rios, 32, believed to be the captain of the boat, at the scene. They later discovered that the boat had been reported stolen from a local boat rental agency the day before.

All 13 migrants were turned over to the Coast Guard for repatriation. The narcotics, currency and Rios, whose last known address was in Fort Lauderdale, were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Miami Office of Investigations. Rios has been charged with alien and drug smuggling. Mann said it is very unusual to find Hashish contraband with migrants trying to enter the country by boat.

''It's very unusual. Most of it goes to Canada, but we do see it from time to time -- more often in cargo shipments out of Jamaica."