Guyana Water Inc (GWI) Debt Collection Manager Lear Goring has been sent on administrative leave following reports of his previous narcotics convictions in the United States.
“I can confirm that he has been sent on administrative leave, that is all I can say,” GWI Public Relations Officer Leanna Bradshaw said yesterday, hours after Stabroek News asked for confirmation that Goring has been sent on leave.
Goring, a friend of GWI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Richard Van West-Charles and who was hired without the post being advertised, was at work up to Monday afternoon, when this newspaper sought to question him at GWI’s offices. Goring told the security officer at the gate that he was not speaking to anyone.
Goring also sits as a Director on a fuel company that has been granted a licence to import and distribute fuel and on which the CEO is also a Director. This newspaper had asked the GWI CEO about the close connection between himself and Goring and the fact that he was hired by the utility company and he said, “And so what happened with that?” He then terminated the conversation shortly after.
According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, Goring was charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine in 1995 and he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 63 months in prison by Judge K M Moore in a Brooklyn, New York Court. He was expected to be supervised for 48 months after release. He was later deported.
In 2002 along with his mother, Joycelyn Goring, he had filed a petition for a naturalisation hearing in front of Judge I Leo Glasser on September 26, 2000.
This was objected to by the US government on the grounds that Goring was convicted in 1990 of drug trafficking and deported in 1993 and then he returned to the US in 1995 with “a forged passport and drugs.”
“Goring cannot be deemed a national,” the document said. The petition was dismissed in 2002, after the court was informed that Goring was deported.
It is unclear whether the CEO was aware of the conviction.
