Fran­cis Joseph

Bal­ram 'Ba­lo' Ma­haraj was not war vet­er­an. He did not serve in the Gulf War. He served in the US army for sev­en months and 12 days be­fore he went miss­ing. When he re­turned to the job, he got an "Un­de­sir­able Dis­charge" from the US army.

Ma­haraj, who went to the US as Al­ladin Bar­low John, was il­le­gal in the US for a long time. But some­how, he end­ed up with US cit­i­zen­ship and an un­signed pass­port. He ran afoul of the law in New York, and got a US $4.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment for a fall.

When Ma­haraj was kid­napped from an Aranguez bar on April 6, 2005 and when his re­mains were re­cov­ered on Jan­u­ary 8, 2006, the Unit­ed States showed great in­ter­est in this mat­ter. As­sist­ing the lo­cal po­lice, were of­fi­cials of the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI).

Word on the ground was that he was some­what in­volved with the FBI, and that ex­plains how he came in­to pos­ses­sion of an un­signed US pass­port, and the great in­ter­est shown by the FBI when he went miss­ing.

Al­though sev­er­al peo­ple were charged with his mur­der, the US want­ed them for hostage-tak­ing re­sult­ing in death. The charges in Trinidad were dropped, and 12 peo­ple were ex­tra­dit­ed to Wash­ing­ton, DC, to face tri­al. It is an of­fence in the US when a cit­i­zen of that coun­try is tak­en hostage and even­tu­al­ly killed, even if the of­fence is com­mit­ted in an­oth­er coun­try.

Five of the Trinida­di­ans de­cid­ed to turn pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es and en­ter a plea deal in the US for a "lighter" sen­tence. Sev­en went to tri­al and on Ju­ly 31, were found guilty and will re­ceive their sen­tences on Feb­ru­ary 12, 2010.

The man

Bal­ram 'Ba­lo' Ma­haraj?

Ma­haraj was born on Oc­to­ber 1, 1943, as Al­ladin Bar­low John. By his own ad­mis­sion to the Im­mi­gra­tion and Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion Ser­vice, Ma­haraj said he en­tered the US for the first time on De­cem­ber 2, 1967, with­out a visa. He was ex­pect­ed to tran­sit via the US to Cana­da.

He land­ed in New York and was giv­en a ten-day stay. He went to Cana­da and re­turned to the US four days lat­er, again with­out a visa. This time, he was al­lowed a four-day stay. He did not leave for Trinidad, opt­ing to stay with a Trinida­di­an friend in Brook­lyn.

As an il­le­gal im­mi­grant, Ma­haraj joined the US Army on June 26, 1968. While in the US army, Ma­haraj took leave and re­turned to Trinidad to vis­it his fam­i­ly. He re-en­tered the US on Jan­u­ary 11, 1969, show­ing his mil­i­tary iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

He de­sert­ed the US army af­ter just sev­en months and 12 days of ser­vice and took up a new pro­fes­sion as an elec­tri­cian, work­ing in New York City. On Oc­to­ber 2, 1974, Ma­haraj re­ceived an "Un­de­sir­able Dis­charge" from the Armed Forces of the USA.

His records showed he did not re­ceive any rec­om­men­da­tions, nor did he serve in a com­bat area. He re­ceived a dis­charge un­der oth­er, than ho­n­ourable con­di­tions and he was not a dis­abled vet­er­an.

On April 7, 1976, the im­mi­gra­tion ser­vices is­sued an or­der to Ma­haraj to show cause why he should not be de­port­ed to Trinidad. They ac­cused him of over­stay­ing his vis­it to the US.

Ma­haraj ran afoul of the law in New York. He ap­peared be­fore the State of New York Coun­ty of Westch­ester Court, Vil­lage of Pel­ham Manor, charged with the of­fences of grand lar­ce­ny on Sep­tem­ber 18, 1984. He plead­ed guilty to a re­duced charge of pet­ty lar­ce­ny and was fined $688 and giv­en three years' pro­ba­tion.

Ma­haraj was mar­ried for 12 years to Veena Dass Bis­soon, and had two daugh­ters and they lived in Mount Ver­non, New York. Dur­ing his mar­riage, Ma­haraj had six surg­eries, and ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments, he at­tempt­ed sui­cide af­ter one of them.

He had var­i­ous ail­ments, in­clud­ing un­der­go­ing four surg­eries to his low­er back and spine, and had to be con­stant­ly tak­ing med­ica­tion. But he kept go­ing back and forth to Trinidad.

Dur­ing one of his vis­its to Trinidad, he met Doreen Alexan­der and had a com­mon-law re­la­tion­ship with her. Dur­ing that union, a son was born on April 28, 2000. Ma­haraj ap­plied to the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain for a visa for Alexan­der to vis­it the US, but this was turned down. He took the child to the US on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2001, but was forced to re­turn him on an or­der of a US Court, af­ter Alexan­der in­sist­ed that she want­ed her son back.

While in the US, Ma­haraj in­vest­ed in sev­er­al prop­er­ties. He point­ed out that in 1998, he fell through a floor while work­ing, and sued the com­pa­ny which had hired him. He re­ceived a set­tle­ment of US$4.5 mil­lion. At the time of his death, Ma­haraj re­ceived dis­abil­i­ty mon­ey from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, he owned a re­al es­tate com­pa­ny; and he re­ceived US$4,000 month­ly from four apart­ments he owned. He had no mort­gages to the prop­er­ties he owned.

To­mor­row:

Ja­son Per­ci­val,

star wit­ness

?LE­GAL CHAL­LENGE

?A ma­jor is­sue at the tri­al in Wash­ing­ton, DC, was whether Ma­haraj was re­al­ly a US cit­i­zen. The sev­en de­fen­dants chal­lenged this, say­ing Ma­haraj made ques­tion­able rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the US Im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment, with the re­sult that he came in­to pos­ses­sion of an un­signed pass­port.

The de­fen­dants filed mo­tions in the civ­il and crim­i­nal ju­ris­dic­tions. Judge John Bates is still to rule on the crim­i­nal mo­tion, and if he rules against it, the de­fen­dants will ap­peal. That rul­ing could come be­fore the sen­tenc­ing of the sev­en men.

Ma­haraj who was known as Al­ladin John changed his name, say­ing Bal­ram Ma­haraj was suit­able as he want­ed to be­come a pun­dit. His un­signed pass­port was en­tered in­to ev­i­dence at the tri­al in Wash­ing­ton and a pass­port ex­pert from the US Im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment could not pro­vide the court with an ex­pla­na­tion as to its ori­gin, or the cir­cum­stances un­der which such a doc­u­ment could have been is­sued.