On 15 January 2000, Guy Philippe and his wife had a daughter named Aïsha. Following October 2000 accusations of participation in a coup plot and his subsequent removal from his post as police chief of Cap-Haïtien, Philippe fled to the Dominican Republic. While there he recruited ex-military and others forming a paramilitary organization, which received training from the U.S. Government. The Haitian government accused Philippe of masterminding a deadly attack on the Police Academy in July 2001 and of an attempted coup in December 2001. In July 2003, witnesses place him, together with Voltaire Jean-Batiste, leading a death squad operating in eastern Haiti just across the Dominican border.