| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Former Oregon Resident Released from Mexican Prison
 Michael Russell - The Oregonian
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April 01, 2010
| | Rebecca Roth, a former resident of Lake Oswego, was accused of money laundering in Mexico. She spent years in jail on the charge. | |
A former Lake Oswego woman arrested in Mexico more than four years ago in connection with an Internet scheme that she claimed to know nothing about was released Tuesday into her family's care, relatives say.
Rebecca Roth, 52, was resting at her sister's Guadalajara home Wednesday and could not talk with media immediately.
"We're in the eye of the storm right now," sister Barbara Roth said. "She's sitting here with a medical doctor."
It was unclear why Mexican authorities released Rebecca Roth. The U.S. consulate in Guadalajara did not return calls for comment.
Family members said Mexican officials declined to say why Roth was held for so long in a squalid cell when the evidence against her seemed weak.
"I don't think they have to tell you that," said Hilda Dimmick, Roth's mother, from her Walla Walla retirement home. She was thrilled to hear the news Tuesday evening about her daughter's release.
"I'm just weak, and I think I'm in shock," Dimmick said. "This has been four years, you know, that she's been in prison. And she said all along that she was innocent."
Dimmick said she understood that the release came with no strings and that Roth can return to the United States as soon as she is able.
Over the years, readers followed the case in The Oregonian, where former columnist Margie Boulé detailed Roth's deplorable situation and Oregon leaders' lack of action.
But friends and family didn't give up hope for Roth. Barbara Roth moved to Mexico to be closer to her sister, and Rebecca Roth's ex-husband, David Dickinson, started a blog and Web site to provide updates on the twists and turns in the case.
"Her nightmare is over!" Dickinson wrote Sunday after hearing news of her coming release.
Roth's nightmare began with what was to be a move to paradise. In 1999, Roth left her job with a Lake Oswego credit union and moved to Puerto Vallarta with her two teenage sons to seek an environmental cure for her asthma. In the resort tucked next to the Pacific Ocean's Bahia de Banderas, Roth opened a dress store and began a new life.
The trouble started after Roth was introduced to a Canadian man, Alyn Waage, who presented himself as a billionaire and Internet investment site operator. Waage offered her a part-time job paying utility bills on his Mexican luxury properties, and Roth, looking to supplement her income in the tourism off-season, accepted.
In 2001, Waage was arrested by Mexican authorities, and about the same time, $50,000 was deposited into Roth's bank account.
Waage posted bail and fled. He eventually was caught in Costa Rica and extradited to the United States, where federal prosecutors argued that he and his associates and family had swindled more than $60 million from investors.
In 2005, he was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme via the Internet and sent to a North Carolina prison.
Waage gave investigators a list of people he said helped operate his scheme. Roth was not on that list.
Still, in February 2006, Roth was arrested and taken to a maximum-security prison. Authorities grilled her about the $50,000, and she was charged with money laundering and organized crime. She offered receipts and bank records showing Waage's money was used to pay bills.
In a trial that ex-husband Dickinson described as "a railroad job at best," Roth was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Roth's relatives paid $20,000 to a lawyer who produced few results. Their letters to Oregon leaders received stock replies or no response.
They watched helplessly as the Canadian government successfully fought to transfer one of its citizens, Brenda Martin, also a former worker for Waage, back to Canada to serve her sentence in the case.
Good news emerged last week, when a three-judge appeals panel ruled that the case had to be completely retried, and Roth gave a new deposition.
On Sunday, a judge decided to let Roth go. After two days waiting to find out whether prosecutors would appeal the dismissal, Roth was freed.
Dimmick said she knows all mothers think their children are innocent but that she never doubted her daughter.
Dimmick is planning a homecoming party, including Roth's reunion with her sons, who live in Idaho and Washington.
Mexican authorities "wanted her to plead guilty and receive a shorter sentence," Dimmick said. "And she said 'No, I am not guilty, and I will not plead guilty.'"
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