Derek Achong

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, has dis­con­tin­ued one of sev­en cor­rup­tion charges against for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald. 

Gas­pard an­nounced his de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charge dur­ing a hear­ing be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle on Thurs­day. 

The dis­con­tin­ued charge was re­port­ed­ly re­lat­ed to the al­leged ap­proval of a $2.3 mil­lion con­tract for a project at Mar­cano Quar­ry Lands in Laven­tille in 2010, when she was serv­ing as Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs. 

Mc­Don­ald still faces two charges for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud, three for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and one for mon­ey laun­der­ing. 

In late 2019, Mc­Don­ald, long-time com­pan­ion Michael Carew, Wayne An­tho­ny, Vic­tor McEachrane and Edgar Zepher­ine were slapped with 49 charges for al­leged­ly at­tempt­ing to de­fraud the gov­ern­ment by procur­ing funds for Carew’s Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, un­der the guise that it was a char­i­ty. 

Carew is fac­ing eight charges-three for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and five for mon­ey laun­der­ing. 

Zepher­ine, the for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help, is fac­ing 27 mon­ey laun­der­ing charges and one for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud. 

McEachrane is fac­ing three fraud charges and three for mon­ey laun­der­ing, while An­tho­ny on­ly has one mon­ey laun­der­ing charge. Both McEachrane and An­tho­ny are con­trac­tors. The of­fences are al­leged to have oc­curred be­tween 2008 and 2010 but the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion on­ly be­gan in 2016. 

Mc­Don­ald was re­moved as Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter and deputy Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader af­ter be­ing charged. 

Dur­ing a hear­ing of the case in No­vem­ber 2020, the DDP’s Of­fice in­di­cat­ed that it would be fil­ing the in­dict­ments against the group di­rect­ly in the High Court as op­posed to do­ing so up­on the com­ple­tion of a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry be­fore Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle. 

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle has in­di­cat­ed that she would set a date for the start of the in­quiry if the in­di­cat­ed process is not com­plet­ed when the case comes up for hear­ing be­fore her on Au­gust 15. 

Mc­Don­ald and Carew are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, Owen Hinds Jr and Rus­sell Warn­er. Ian Brooks is rep­re­sent­ing Zepher­ine, while An­tho­ny is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Williams.