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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Rennie Coolman admits to court: I paid $50,000 to Bribe DPP

Cool­man: I paid $75,000 to bribe state of­fi­cials Emo­tions made me do it

by

20140415

Strick­en by the fear of be­ing in­no­cent­ly pros­e­cut­ed for his wife's kid­nap­ping, Ren­nie Cool­man paid $75,000 to a con­woman who promised to as­sist by brib­ing se­nior pros­e­cu­tors in­to for­go­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ing him. Cool­man made the ad­mis­sion yes­ter­day while be­ing grilled for over three hours by de­fence at­tor­ney Mario Mer­ritt, who is rep­re­sent­ing two of the dozen men ac­cused of mur­der­ing his wife Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man.While un­der cross ex­am­i­na­tion in the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, Cool­man ad­mit­ted he was con­tact­ed by the woman, who pre­tend­ed to be at­tached to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion (DPP), sev­er­al months af­ter his wife was kid­napped from their Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas home on De­cem­ber 19, 2006.

Al­though the al­leged fraud­ster's name was men­tioned sev­er­al times dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing, tri­al Judge Mal­colm Holdip re­quest­ed that her name be with­held in me­dia re­ports to avoid her be­ing prej­u­diced in her pend­ing court case in the mat­ter.Cool­man said the woman first went to his work­place, where she ob­tained his cell­phone num­ber which she used to con­tact him.Mer­ritt was able to get Cool­man to ad­mit he paid the woman $50,000 to bribe the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), in ad­di­tion to $25,000 to bribe Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, who is pros­e­cut­ing the case."My emo­tions made me do what I did," Cool­man said.He said in April 2007 he met the woman at Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, near to the Hall of Jus­tice, to make the pay­ment, but de­nied be­ing aware that Khan's of­fice was lo­cat­ed near­by.

Mer­ritt then at­tempt­ed to ask Cool­man if he knew his ac­tions were il­le­gal, but was stopped by an ob­jec­tion from pros­e­cu­tors be­fore Cool­man could re­spond.Af­ter they ad­dressed the ob­jec­tions in cham­ber and re­turned to court, Mer­ritt be­gan ask­ing Cool­man about his rea­son­ing for pay­ing the bribes.Mer­ritt: You did noth­ing wrong and you still part­ed with your $75,000?

Cool­man: Yes.Mer­ritt: What made you give up your hard earned mon­ey...your wife's mon­ey?Cool­man: It was said to me that I would be charged in­no­cent­ly with­out ev­i­dence.Mer­ritt: You were told that you would be charged in­no­cent­ly with­out ev­i­dence?Cool­man: That's right.Mer­ritt: You know that the po­lice charge peo­ple in­no­cent­ly with­out ev­i­dence?Cool­man: Yes.

Al­though Cool­man's ex­tra-ju­di­cial at­tempt at evad­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion was seem­ing­ly suc­cess­ful, the cam­pus man­ag­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) claimed he on­ly re­alised that he was be­ing fleeced when the woman con­tact­ed him a sec­ond time and de­mand­ed a fur­ther pay­ment. Mer­ritt: Why did you not pay the $200,000?Cool­man: I de­cid­ed this was a ma­jor fraud ... I re­alised that she prob­a­bly would con­tin­ue and I had to take some form of ac­tion.Mer­ritt: You didn't want to part with your mon­ey?Cool­man: I de­cid­ed to make the call be­cause I didn't want it to con­tin­ue.De­spite his can­did con­fes­sion, State pros­e­cu­tors quick­ly ob­ject­ed when Mer­ritt be­gan sug­gest­ing to Cool­man that he was di­rect­ly in­volved in his wife's ab­duc­tion.A de­mure Cool­man was al­so asked why he did not utilise the $400,000 he had in a joint ac­count with his de­ceased wife to as­sist in pay­ing the ran­som for her re­lease.

He re­spond­ed: "They did not de­mand or re­quest any ran­som. They con­ti­nous­ly asked to speak with her broth­er Anand Naipaul and her fa­ther. They did not want to ne­go­ti­ate with me."Dur­ing his gru­elling cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, Mer­ritt re­peat­ed­ly en­quired about Cool­man's re­la­tion­ship with his wife while al­lud­ing that the cou­ple had is­sues with their re­la­tion­ship.How­ev­er, Cool­man de­nied these as­ser­tions, stat­ing: "We had an ex­cel­lent re­la­tion­ship."Mer­ritt al­so sought to iden­ti­fy in­con­sis­ten­cies with the ev­i­dence Cool­man gave dur­ing his wife's pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, two weeks ago in the tri­al and in a book he co-au­thored. The in­con­sis­ten­cy dealt with if Cool­man saw the firearms which were al­leged­ly used by his wife's kid­nap­pers. Mer­ritt claimed Cool­man first said he did not see any firearms, then changed his sto­ry when he be­gan tes­ti­fy­ing in the tri­al two Thurs­days ago.Mer­ritt will con­tin­ue his cross-ex­am­i­na­tion this morn­ing.

Who's in court

The dozen men be­fore the ju­ry and Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip are: Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, twin broth­ers Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, sib­lings Kei­da and Jamille Gar­cia and their old­er broth­er An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster, broth­ers Mar­lon and Earl Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Fras­er and Lyn­don James. A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged with the crime but died in prison in 2011 of com­pli­ca­tions from sick­le-cell anaemia.

Le­gal team

Their le­gal team in­cludes Ul­ric Sker­ritt, Joseph Pan­tor, Sel­wyn Mo­hammed, Lennox Sankers­ingh, Ian Brooks, Wayne Sturge, Mario Mer­ritt, Richard Valere, Kwe­si Bekoe, Col­in Selvon, Vince Charles, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, Deli­cia Hel­wig and Alex­ia Romero. The pros­e­cu­tion team in­cludes Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Dana See­ta­hal, who are be­ing as­sist­ed by se­nior state pros­e­cu­tors Joy Balka­ran and Kel­ly Thomp­son.


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