BOSTON – A former mayor from Haiti went on trial Monday after authorities say he lied 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."
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But federal prosecutors allege 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.
“The defendant was the mayor of this town and he didn’t tolerate anyone who questioned or opposed his authority,” trial attorney Alexandra Skinnion told the jury, adding that some of the victims of that violence would testify during the trial.
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.
Prosecutors also allege that in 2008, Viliena and his allies went armed with guns, machetes, picks and sledgehammers to shut down a community radio station that he opposed. 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.
“Today, we are in a courtroom in Boston because the defendant lied about all this,” Skinnion said. “He didn't disclose he was involved in murdering and shooting people because he knew, if he did, he wouldn’t be allowed into the United States.”
Defense attorneys say Viliena is innocent and therefore didn’t lie on his visa application. But Viliena was found liable by an American jury in a civil trial in 2023 in connection with the killing and the two attempted killings and assessed $15.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The lawsuit was filed by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf of David Boniface, Juders Ysemé and Nissage Martyr in Boston in 2017. Nissage Martyr died and his son, Nissandère Martyr, replaced him as a plaintiff.
The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which allows suits to be filed in the U.S. against foreign officials over allegations of wrongdoing in their homeland if all legal avenues in their country have been exhausted.
The center also called on the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to work with Haiti's government to ensure the safety of its clients and their family members, who have been subjected to retaliation and intimidation.
Defense 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 detailed in the charges against Viliena. 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.
“Mr. Viliena is innocent of the charges against him and we are looking forward to the opportunity to prove this,” Jason Benzaken, the lead counsel for Viliena, said ahead of the trial.