EDITORIAL: Why Investigative Reporting Matters

EDITORIAL: Why Investigative Reporting Matters

In 2018, GoLocal spent the better part of six weeks investigating the scheme being run by a New York convicted child molester and murderer and Bienvenido “Alex” Peralta Martinez, a Central Falls resident.

The investigation revealed Peralta Martinez's involvement in a locally registered non-profit in Rhode Island with Carlos Davila, the convicted child molester and murderer who was barred from representing immigrants in 2017 and fined $1.3 million. 

Davila and Peralta Martinez at the time were listed by the State of Rhode Island as being the President and Vice-President of "A New Beginning for Immigrants' Rights," which a Venezuelan national told GoLocal he paid over $1,000 to help obtain a work permit, only to receive what he said was fraudulent paperwork.

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He was one of many victims.

Rhode Island's then-Attorney General Peter Kilmartin said he would not look into accusations of immigration extortion, after GoLocal's investigation revealed that undocumented immigrants were defrauded by the Rhode Island and New York-based scheme.  The then-New York Attorney General had taken action in 2017, shuttering the nonprofit "A New Beginning for Immigrants' Rights."

GoLocal wrote a series of stories, reviewed hundreds of documents, traveled to multiple homes and businesses to interview victims and those with information about the scheme.

This past week, the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island secured a plea by Peralta Martinez — two years after the GoLocal reports.

The victims were poor and were only seeking the opportunity to live in America legally. How many were victimized, no one will ever know.

Constant Battle for Public Documents

Over the course of the next several weeks, GoLocal will incur significant legal fees to sue the Rhode Island state officials in an effort to force them to release emails and documents between RI DEM officials and RIDOT officials about the removal of contaminated waste dumped in an Olneyville neighborhood as part of the 6/10 reconstruction project. 

An ongoing GoLocal investigation over the past four months has unveiled the dumping of the soil, false information by state officials and repeated efforts by top appointees to block the release of public information.

Those that have been adversely impacted are those that live in Olneyville -- homeowners and small businesses whose lives have been disrupted and whose health may have been impacted. The RI Department of Transportation and the contractors have ignored Rhode Island laws. The regulator -- the RI Department of Environmental Management -- has been a paper tiger.

For folks wanting to live an American life, to become citizens and for those that want to live in safe neighborhoods without the threat of their home being contaminated, there needs to be dogged, relentless journalism.

GoLocal is a Rhode Island company. We are not owned by a national company from out-of-state. We are the local store, not the big box retailer.

We are committed to fairness -- in both of these schemes, business interests sought profits over community and government failed to do its job.

Investigative journalism matters.

If you have a tip, contact our reporters at GoLocal HERE.