29381: Craig (news) Court Orders Constant to Pay $19M (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From:  Dan Craig


            Court Orders Haitian Strongman To Pay Rape Victims $19M

POSTED: 12:08 pm EDT October 25, 2006
UPDATED: 12:45 pm EDT October 25, 2006

NEW YORK -- A Manhattan judge has ordered a former Haitian strongman to
pay $19 million to three women who claimed they were gang-raped by
paramilitary soldiers under his command.


A ruling by U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein finds that Emmanuel "Toto"
Constant was "liable for torture, attempted extra-judicial killing and
crimes against humanity."


Constant fled to the U.S. in 2003. He is jailed on Long Island after
being charged in July with mortgage fraud. His attorney in that case has
declined to comment.


The women sued Constant in federal court in Manhattan.


They accuse him of sanctioning systematic rapes in the early 1990s to
silence slum-dwellers still devoted to the ousted former president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/10155111/detail.html