Claude Peters, the taxi driver who was charged in July with misusing money given to him by a Nigerian national to buy an engine, has been fined $100,000 by a city court after being found guilty.
Magistrate Fabayo Azore told Peters on Friday that a charge of fraudulent conversion usually carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison but, given the circumstances, she would ask him to pay the fine or spend an alternative of 12 months in prison.
The charge read to Peters in July of this year stated that between June 1st and June 3rd, at Georgetown, while being solely entrusted with $100,000 in order to purchase a car engine for PNN 4188, Peters converted the money to his own use and benefit.
Magistrate Azore told Peters that what convinced her of his guilt was the fact that he repeatedly said in his testimony that he knew the man was not from the country and yet took him somewhere he did not want to go in the first place. The magistrate said she believed Peters took advantage of the man and did in fact take his money.
Peters, trying to convince the magistrate of his innocence, said that on the day, the complainant asked that he accompany him to the bank at Robb Street but it was too far so he took him to the Carmichael Street branch. He stated that the complainant had also never produced a slip showing that he withdrew money to the police.
After the defendant was read the sentence, he kept requesting to make contact with his lawyer, Paul Fung-A-Fat, who was engaged in another matter in the court at that time.
