It was 4:30 a.m. on October 11 when Esmeralda Hernández José stepped through the gates of Puente Grande Women’s Prison to draw a deep breath as a free woman.
She had finally been liberated after spending slightly more than one-third of her short life behind bars at the dismal, over-crowded penitentiary on the outskirts of Guadalajara.
A few hours later, the petite blond was settling in at the lakeside home of Rebecca Roth, the abiding friend with whom she formed a business partnership under extraordinary circumstances.
In that safe haven Hernandez met with the Guadalajara Reporter this week to share her remarkable story. Solemn, yet radiating deep inner strength, she reflected on her prison life during the 11 years and seven months she had been held for judicial processing before being released, fully absolved of the serious criminal charges she had faced since the age of 23.
For years Hernandez went through a series of incompetent defense attorneys before connecting with Edgar Rene Diaz Solis, a diligent lawyer who took up her cause. For a year and a half he picked his way through the labyrinthine legal system to first get her case separated from that of three co-defendants, and then present legal arguments attesting to her innocence.
The link between Hernández and Roth goes back to 2006, the year both women landed in Puente Grande on trumped-up charges.
Roth is an U.S. citizen who was living in Puerto Vallarta when she inadvertently became entangled in a Ponzi scam perpetrated by a Canadian named Alyn Richard Waage. She was picked up by Mexican authorities and charged with money laundering and involvement in organized crime. A four-year legal battle ensued before she was vindicated and regained her freedom.
Hernández, a bright young woman who had completed a degree in biochemical engineering prior to her arrest, was bunked in the same cell block with Roth. To take her mind off her troubles in a productive way, she asked the American to teach her English. Roth, for her part, had gained some psychological solace from a sewing project. Gathering scraps of fabric, yarn and paints, she made a doll for the infant daughter of another fellow inmate.
That was the origin of their mutual enterprise, branded Original Friends Dolls. It is the cottage industry they set up inside Puente Grande as a work option for women prisoners. Operating in a tiny workshop area, creative hands produce one-of-a kind figures that are named, numbered and signed by the artists. Roth took on the marketing and external coordination after her 2010 release, while Hernandez handled management inside the prison walls. Hundreds of buyers across the globe have purchased the unique dolls through outlets in Mexico and Internet sites.
Now Hernandez is free, she and Roth are still partnered and keeping the project on track. For the moment they are working diligently to build an inventory of a least 100 dolls to show at the Feria Maestros del Arte, coming up November 10-12 at Chapala’s Club de Yates. Look for them there.