The ma­jor fraud case against for­mer trav­el agent Vicky Boodram, for al­leged­ly de­fraud­ing clients in re­la­tion to a cruise that did not ma­te­ri­alise, has col­lapsed due to pros­e­cu­tion de­lays.

Boodram was freed of over 100 fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing charges when her case came up for hear­ing be­fore High Court Mas­ter Lisa Singh-Phillip, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Boodram’s lawyer, Stephen Wil­son, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment (PDD), ap­plied to have her dis­charged based on the fail­ure of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to meet ex­tend­ed dead­lines for fil­ing ev­i­dence need­ed for a suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing.

Se­nior Coun­sel Elaine Green, who rep­re­sent­ed the DPP’s Of­fice, ad­mit­ted that three dead­lines were not com­plied with.

Stat­ing that it would be un­fair to Boodram to have her be­fore the court in the cir­cum­stances, Green said: “I don’t see the need to clog the list. We are not yet ready.”

How­ev­er, Green did leave it open to the DPP’s Of­fice to pos­si­bly re­in­state the case in the fu­ture.

“If we can get our house in or­der, then we would do what we have to do at that time,” Green said.

Mas­ter Singh-Phillip then grant­ed Wil­son’s ap­pli­ca­tion.

Boodram thanked Green and Singh-Phillip for mak­ing the de­ci­sion.

“Thank you very much. I ap­pre­ci­ate it,” she said.

Boodram was not im­me­di­ate­ly re­leased from the Gold­en Grove Women’s Prison in Arou­ca af­ter the hear­ing, as she is still fac­ing charges from her brief es­cape from the fa­cil­i­ty in late 2017, for which she has not been grant­ed bail.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Boodram’s lawyers are ex­pect­ed to make a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion when the re­main­ing case comes up for hear­ing be­fore an­oth­er High Court Mas­ter in two weeks, as there is a sim­i­lar de­lay in pros­e­cut­ing that case.

Boodram, the own­er of now-de­funct Boodram Trav­el and Ship Ahoy Cruis­es Ltd, was ac­cused of de­fraud­ing nu­mer­ous for­mer clients of more $1 mil­lion they paid for a cruise in April 2011 that did not ma­te­ri­alise.

Boodram was ini­tial­ly charged with 109 fraud of­fences, but two of the charges were dis­missed be­cause the pros­e­cu­tion could of­fer no ev­i­dence in those mat­ters as the vic­tims had died.

Boodram was al­so charged with two mon­ey laun­der­ing of­fences.

Those charges al­leged that in Sep­tem­ber 2010, Boodram pur­chased a Mer­cedes Benz for $621,042.45 and in Oc­to­ber 2010 bought a house and land at Palmiste, San Fer­nan­do, for more than $2 mil­lion, know­ing that the mon­ey was de­rived through fraud­u­lent means.

In late No­vem­ber 2017, Boodram es­caped the prison.

It was re­port­ed that two po­lice of­fi­cers as­sist­ed in her es­cape by pre­sent­ing what they pur­port­ed to be a court or­der re­quir­ing her to ap­pear at a hear­ing out­side of nor­mal court hours.

Three days lat­er, she was ar­rest­ed at a house in Pe­nal.

WPC Lisa Navar­ro and PC LeV­on Sylvester were joint­ly charged with mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by ut­ter­ing a forged doc­u­ment to fa­cil­i­tate Boodram’s un­law­ful re­lease from cus­tody.

The two of­fi­cers and Boodram were joint­ly charged with dis­hon­est­ly and fraud­u­lent­ly aid­ing in procur­ing Boodram’s re­lease.

Boodram’s friend, Rox­anne Cud­joe, in whose house Boodram was re­port­ed­ly found, was charged with har­bour­ing her with in­tent to im­pede her ar­rest.

Boodram vowed to be­come an at­tor­ney up­on her even­tu­al re­lease from prison while ad­dress­ing a R.I.S.E. (Rein­te­gra­tion Sup­port and Em­pow­er­ment) fash­ion show at the T&T Prison Ser­vice Recre­ation­al Sports and Cul­tur­al Club in Ju­ly.

“I look for­ward ea­ger­ly to my le­gal re­lease, to be able to now give back my pound of flesh to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice and oth­er stake­hold­ers, to re­turn that favour, along with my le­gal team, by pro­vid­ing prop­er, fair and bal­anced le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the courts,” she said.

Boodram was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by pub­lic de­fend­er Janeil Chuck.