U.S. missionary in Haiti convicted and released

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The last of 10 Americans detained while trying to take 33 children out of Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake was freed yesterday when a judge convicted her but sentenced her to time already served in jail.

Laura Silsby, 40, the organizer of the ill-fated effort to take the children to an orphanage being set up in the Dominican Republic, returned to her cell to retrieve belongings before quickly heading to the airport.

"I'm praising God," Silsby told The Associated Press as she waited for a flight out of Haiti. She cleared immigration and headed through a gate to catch a plane to Florida.

The Idaho businesswoman had been in custody since Jan. 29. Silsby was convicted of arranging illegal travel under a 1980 statute restricting movement out of Haiti signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. Prosecutor Jean-Serge Joseph said she was sentenced to the 3 months and 8 days she spent behind bars. - AP