US mom worries for grandson after daughter’s arrest, release over alleged assassination plot

No word from woman freed in alleged plot, mom says

LEADVILLE, Colo. — A Colorado woman who says she is the mother of an American held and later released in Ireland over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist said Sunday she does not know where her daughter or grandson may be.

Christine Mott, of Leadville, said she learned from federal law-enforcement agencies that her 31-year-old daughter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, had been arrested. Irish police said Saturday that they had released an American woman and three others arrested over the alleged plot to kill Vilks, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a 2007 sketch with the body of a dog. Police wouldn’t confirm whether those released included Paulin-Ramirez.

Mott said Sunday she had not heard from federal authorities, Paulin-Ramirez or her 6-year-old grandson, Christian.

“The only thing I care about is getting that little boy back in the United States where he is safe,” she said.

Paulin-Ramirez lived in Blue Springs, Mo., before moving to Leadville, her mother said. She told her family last year that she had converted to Islam and that they’d go to hell if they didn’t do the same, Mott said.

Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville with her son on Sept. 11, later telling her family that she went to Ireland and married an Algerian whom she met online, Mott said.

Mott said she talked to her grandson March 8. She said she has considered trying to gain custody of her grandson but doesn’t know where to start.

“We’re on disability. We struggle from day to day to get by on Social Security. We don’t have any money to get an attorney,” Mott said.

She said she hasn’t been able to reach her daughter by phone this weekend.

“I can’t stop her, but this little boy has not had any choices about what has happened to him,” she said. “That little boy is caught in the middle of something that he didn’t ask for.”