Port-au-Prince , Haiti ( CNN ) -- The American missionaries in Haiti facing kidnapping charges for trying to take 33 children out of the country last week made an earlier , unsuccessful attempt at taking dozens of other children , a Haitian police officer said . The officer did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals . He told CNN on Monday that he had stopped the 10 Baptist missionaries , including group leader Laura Silsby , on January 26 as they tried to transport 40 children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic . The officer said he discovered Silsby and the nine other Americans on a bus in Port-au-Prince 's Pétionville neighborhood after receiving a tip from a concerned citizen . He stopped the group and ordered the children to get off the bus . He then directed Silsby to the Dominican Embassy . `` I said what happened , and she [ Silsby ] told me , ' I have the paperwork to cross the Haitian-Dominican border with 100 children , ' `` the officer said . A former attorney for the group , Edwin Coq , said the officer has testified of his account . Prosecutors questioned the officer last week in the case against the missionaries . Prosecutors no longer suspect him of any wrongdoing , and he is now a witness , according Coq , who is familiar with the prosecution 's case file . The police officer 's superiors also confirmed his version of events . Attorneys for the Americans did not immediately answer calls for comment . Full coverage of the earthquake 's aftermath . The 10 missionaries were charged Thursday with kidnapping children and criminal association for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti . Earlier Monday , Jorge Puello , a Dominican attorney who said he was hired to represent the group , said they had authorization from the Dominican Republic to bring the children across the border . Puello showed reporters a manila folder he said contained documents that prove the Americans had authorization to bring the children into the Dominican Republic , but he did not show the documents to reporters . Dominican authorities have said the Americans did not have permission , and Puello did not say whether the group had the authorization of Haitian officials . The Americans have said they were trying to help the children get to a safe place after January 12 's magnitude-7.0 earthquake , which has left more than 200,000 dead . iReport : Looking for loved ones in Haiti . Arriving outside the Haitian attorney general 's office Monday , Puello said a church hired him that counts some of the jailed Americans among its members . He did not identify the congregation . Coq announced over the weekend that he had resigned . Puello said Monday that Coq had been fired but gave no details . Some of the Americans have said they thought they were helping orphans , but their interpreters said this week that they were present when group members spoke with some of the children 's parents . Some parents in a village outside Port-au-Prince said they had willingly given their children to the Americans , who promised them a better life . The parents also said they had been told they could see their children whenever they wanted . But the Dominican consul general has said he warned the group 's leader , Silsby , about trying to cross the border without proper documents . Silsby and four other Americans arrived for an appearance before an examining judge Monday . One of them , Paul Thomson , referred reporters to a passage in the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians , in which the apostle Paul tells early Christians , `` It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession , like men condemned to die in the arena . '' The passage continues , `` To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty , we are in rags , we are brutally treated , we are homeless . We work hard with our own hands . When we are cursed , we bless ; when we are persecuted , we endure it ; when we are slandered , we answer kindly . ''
Officer arrested in Haiti charged with kidnapping 33 Haitian children . Officer says the group had planned to take another group of children out of country illegally . He says he saw bus with 40 kids on it , directed group leader to Dominican Embassy . The officer 's superiors confirm his version of events .