Overview
- U.S. District Judge John D. Bates imposed life without supervised release on the 34-year-old after a May jury conviction on conspiracy and 16 hostage‑taking counts, along with a $1,700 fine.
- Seventeen missionaries from Christian Aid Ministries, including five children, were abducted near Port-au-Prince on Oct. 16, 2021, with most held for 62 days before an escape and several released earlier.
- Trial evidence described Germine orchestrating the operation from prison, controlling finances and weapons, setting the ransom demand, and seeking to trade the hostages for his own release.
- He previously received a 35-year federal sentence in 2024 for smuggling U.S. firearms to Haiti and laundering ransom proceeds tied to other abductions.
- The case drew a multiagency response involving the FBI Miami Field Office, ATF, U.S. defense and law enforcement partners, the RCMP, and assistance from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, culminating in his transfer to U.S. custody in May 2022.