After more than two years behind bars in Mexico, Brenda Martin walked away from a Canadian prison cell Friday on full parole.
Her lawyer, Luis Guillermo Cruz Rico, said she has been released into her mother's custody and will be staying with her at her home in Trenton, Ont.
Brenda Martin hugs her mother, Marjore Bletcher after her release. They're joined by Debra Tielman, right, who worked to free her from Mexico.
Martin was overcome with emotion as she spoke to reporters outside the gates of the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont.
"I just want to say thank you to all the Canadians that have been behind me and supported me and my family," she said, her voice breaking.
Martin said she was "waiting all day" for news of her parole.
"And when they called us, actually, when two guards came... and they said, 'Brenda, your parole officer wants to see you,' I went, 'Oh my god, maybe I'm getting out.' "
When asked how she plans to spend her time, Martin said, "I'm just going to relax with my mom, and probably cook dinner for my mother and my stepfather."
The National Parole Board ordered Martin released after it concluded she was unlikely to commit a violent offence before her full sentence expires.
News of Martin's release caught her mother by surprise.
"That's news to me," a delighted Marjorie Bletcher told Canwest News Service.
"I just knew this was going to happen, but I didn't know when."
Bletcher said that, after more than two years of worry, she's looking forward to spending time alone with her daughter.
Mexican authorities arrested Martin in February 2006 and charged her with knowingly accepting illicit funds paid from a massive investment scam involving her former boss, Alyn Waage. Martin worked as a chef for Waage at his Puerto Vallarta mansion for 10 months until he fired her in 2001. She insists she knew nothing of the scam -- a claim Waage has backed in a sworn affidavit.
Despite angry protests from her legal counsel and supporters, and despite evidence her legal rights may have been violated, Martin was held in a Mexican prison for more than two years without a trial.
Late last month, a Mexican judge convicted Martin and sentenced her to five years.
The Canadian government -- under massive public pressure due to Martin's public appeals for help -- immediately set in motion a plan spearheaded by Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney to bring Martin back to Canada under an international prisoner transfer treaty.
-- Canwest News Service
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