Former Haiti mayor who lied about killing opponents gets 9 years
The former mayor of a small rural village in Haiti, accused of torturing and killing opponents in his homeland, was sentenced Friday in a Massachusetts federal court to nine years in prison for lying about the atrocities in order to obtain a U.S. green card.
2025-06-23 18:54:21 - VI News Staff
Jean Morose Viliena, 53, who served as mayor of Les Irois, in the country’s Grand’Anse region, had previously been ordered by a federal court in Boston to pay $15.5 million in damages after being found guilty in a civil case of torture, extrajudicial killings, attempted killing and arson.
On Friday Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the District of Massachusetts sentenced him to do time in prison, plus three years of supervised release, after a federal jury in March convicted him of three counts of visa fraud to obtain his permanent resident or green card. After completely his sentence, Viliena is expected to be deported to Haiti, which is routine for foreign nationals convicted of crimes in the US.
Prosecutors said that when Viliena, already two years into his mayoral term, presented himself at the U.S. Embassy Consular Office in Port-au-Prince in 2008 to apply for a U.S. visa, he falsely responded “no” to a question about whether he was ”a member of any class of individuals excluded from admission into the United States, including those who have ‘ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people.” That response allowed him to be granted the visa, which he used to visit the U.S. before deciding to settle in the Boston area.
Two months before his appointment at the U.S. embassy, Viliena and his associates had carried out an attack against an opposition radio station in Les Irois. Viliena, at the time the mayor, and his political associates beat a student during the attack and when the student tried to flee, a bullet struck his face, leaving him permanently blind in one eye.
“According to multiple witnesses’ testimony, Viliena mobilized armed members of his staff and supporters to forcibly shut down the radio station and seize its broadcasting equipment,” the U.S. Justice Department said Friday in a statement announcing the sentencing. “Viliena distributed firearms to his men, some of whom also carried machetes and picks. According to the evidence presented at trial, during this incident, Viliena beat one man and ordered an associate to shoot him when he tried to flee. As a result, the man’s leg was later amputated above the knee.”