Brenda Martin a free woman

Story by The Canadian Press

Brenda Martin is finally a free woman.

Martin was released from a Kitchener, Ont., prison Friday after being granted full parole.

She had been held at the Grand Valley Institution for Women since returning to Canada last week after spending more than two years in a Mexican prison on fraud charges.

Sitting in the passenger seat of longtime friend Debra Tieleman's car, Martin told reporters she'd been on pins and needles all day.

``When they finally called, actually when two guards came to the house, and (said) `Your parole officer wants to see you,' I said `Oh my God, maybe I'm getting out!'''

She thanked the ``three heroes'' in her life: her mother, Marjorie Bletcher; Tieleman; and a journalist who followed her plight.

Martin said she was headed to see her mother in Trenton, Ont.

``I'm just going to relax with my mom, and probably cook dinner for my mother and my stepfather.''

Carol Sparling, a spokeswoman for the National Parole Board, said Martin is a first-time federal offender sentenced to a non-violent offence.

``Those offenders are reviewed with only one criteria, which is if there is reasonable likelihood of them committing a violent offence,'' she said.

``The board found that was no evidence in violence in this case and directed full parole release.''

Parole documents cite a 1993 conviction for drunk driving but don't consider it germane to her current case.

``The existence of a prior conviction involving the excessive use of alcohol shows there has at some point been a potential for victim harm, but this conviction is both dated and isolated,'' says the report.

A Mexican court found Martin guilty last month of involvement in a scam run by her ex-boss, former Edmontonian Alyn Waage.

A Mexican judge sentenced her to five years in jail and ordered her to pay a $3,500 fine.

She has steadfastly maintained she knew nothing of Waage's Tri-West Investment Club fraud scheme, which bilked 15,000 investors out of nearly US$60 million.

Waage was arrested in 2001 and is serving out a 10-year sentence at a low-security federal prison in Butner, N.C.

Martin worked as Waage's personal chef at his posh villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for 10 months until he fired her in early 2001.

Waage told The Canadian Press earlier this year that he paid Martin a year's severance roughly $25,000 because he felt bad about firing her.

Martin subsequently invested $10,000 of the severance pay into Tri-West, but Waage later returned the money.

Martin says she thought it was a good investment and didn't know it was a fraud.

Mexican authorities thought otherwise.

They arrested Martin in February 2006 on allegations of money laundering and participating in a criminal conspiracy connected to Waage's scheme.

She was held at the Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara for more than two years before her conviction last month.

Photos of a teary-eyed Martin were splashed in newspapers across Canada as her plight garnered widespread media attention.

The Conservative government eventually dispatched two MPs to Mexico to salvage what was fast becoming a diplomatic blight.

Martin made a surprise return to Canada on May 1 after being handed over to Canadian authorities.

But her flight home on a government-chartered Challenger jet at a cost to taxpayers of some $80,000 raised eyebrows.

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