A forgery charge which had been laid against recently appointed Town Clerk Royston King more than a year ago was on Thursday withdrawn based on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
King yesterday confirmed to Stabroek News that the matter is no longer before the court.
He informed that when the matter was called on Thursday his attorney Nigel Hughes presented to the court, a letter from the DPP, which instructed the police to withdraw the charges.
He said Magistrate Judy Latchman subsequently dismissed the matter. It is unclear what the DPP’s advice was. The charge had come during a raging feud between the city council and King on one hand and former acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba and then Minister of Local Government, Norman Whittaker on the other.
King was accused of writing a letter purporting that he was the acting Town Clerk, when he was not appointed to so act. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of forgery of an official document.
It was alleged that on July 13, 2012, at Georgetown he wrote a letter to the Beacon Foundation and signed same, purporting that he was the Town Clerk Acting, a position he did not hold nor was appointed to act in at the said time.
Months earlier, Auditor General Deodat Sharma was asked to investigate King for allegedly signing a tax waiver without the legal authority to do so. The waiver, for some $36 million, was granted to the Beacon Foundation.
Whittaker had told Stabroek News that he had written a letter to Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud to alert him about the purported irregularity. “I have asked the Auditor General to investigate the matter and I have also written a letter to the Police Commissioner on the matter,” he had stated, while explaining that he was “not about to accuse King of anything” but that the situation was enough to warrant investigations.
In response to the minister’s claims, King had said that when he had written to the Beacon Foundation, he had been properly appointed by the council to perform the duties of the Town Clerk of Georgetown.
