CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, N.Y., Thurs. July 24, 2008: Haitian strongman Emmanuel `Toto` Constant yesterday pleaded innocence as he took the stand in a Brooklyn Court house.

Constant, 51, is charged with second-degree grand larceny as prosecutors claim he coordinated a mortgage fraud scheme that cheated lenders out of $1.7 million.

Constant is accused of buying homes and selling them at inflated prices to straw buyers, people who were paid to apply for loans that weren’t going to be repaid. The loan proceeds were allegedly divvied up among accomplices.

But in defending himself, Constant said he ran a brokerage business in which he helped speculators buy distressed properties and resell them for profit.

Flipping homes `is the core of real estate,` he said. `It's the essence.`
Then asked by his lawyer if one home deal called shady by prosecutors was actually legitimate, Constant answered, "Absolutely."
Constant told the judge that he is being framed by cooperators who took plea deals. He faces five to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Before this case, Constant was infamous as the leader of feared paramilitary group the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, or FRAPH, which has been accused of terrorizing and slaughtering people loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide between 1991 and 1994.

When Aristide was returned to power, Constant fled to the U.S. He hadd been living in Queens until he was jailed on the larceny charges.

Constant had tried to negotiate a deal himself: a sentence of time served, 10 months, then deportation to Haiti.

Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges rejected this and ordered that Constant stand trial, saying the charges facing him in Haiti `are heinous, and the court cannot in good conscience consent to the previously negotiated sentence.`