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By Eric Miller |

By his own admission, Stephen Schmidt is the kind of man who has never really mapped out his life-things just seem to happen to him. A New York native, he never planned to teach high school physics in Costa Rica, nor did he plan to spend five years as a Latin American journalist. Only by chance did he go to work in the commodities investment field, and a twist of fate brought him to Dallas about two and a half years ago. Something happened to Schmidt a few months ago that put his name on the pages of such publications as The New York Times and Time: He won an appeal from a hemispheric court that could alter the course of Latin American politics.

Schmidt, 37, resides in University Park and operates an investment firm out of a modest beige stucco and brick apartment in Las Colinas. He and partner Walter Reed own SBS Inc., a company that invests the money of wealthy clients in the commodities market.

In 1983, Schmidt was convicted in Costa Rica of practicing journalism without a license, a felony in that and several other Latin American countries. The charges stemmed from his work as a reporter for the English-language Tico Times in San Jose. A lower court cleared Schmidt, but the Costa Rican Supreme Court voted to reinstate the conviction and sentenced him to three months in prison. The court offered to suspend the sentence if Schmidt publicly apologized; he refused and left the country.

Then, last November the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the judicial arm of the Organization of American States, ruled 7-0 that laws requiring the licensing of journalists violate the right of free expression. The ruling by the international court, though non-binding, has caused a stir in Latin America.

“I never applied for a license during the entire time I was a journalist in Costa Rica,” says the outspoken Schmidt. “I was always kind of quasi-legal, but everyone accepted me. Then one day I got up at a debate and admitted that I wasn’t licensed. I publicly admitted my guilt. I basically said ’sue me or let me alone.’ A couple of months later they sued me. I’m still a convicted felon in Costa Rica. If I return I could be jailed for three months. But I’ve never been back and I have no intention of apologizing, certainly.”

Schmidt says he hopes the ruling will trigger legislative action to eliminate licensing requirements in Costa Rica. Advocates of licensing, which include many Latin American journalists, claim the practice limits the profession to only qualified candidates. While many Latin American governments license journalists as a means of controlling the press, Schmidt says Costa Rica has never used the law to muzzle reporters-but the country has been used as an excuse by more despotic regimes. “Other countries in Latin America have pointed to Costa Rica and basically said ’even democracies require that journalists be licensed,’ ” he says.

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