The $10 million fraud charge that was instituted against retired and serving senior police officers in May 2021 was yesterday dismissed by Magistrate Rhondel Weever for lack of evidence, according to one of the defence lawyers. The charges of conspiracy to defraud the Guyana Police Force (GPF) of over $10 million against the nine former and serving officers stemmed from a paid review of the force’s Standing Orders.
Those charged were retired Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Paul Slowe, former Police Finance Officer Woman Senior Superintendent Marcelene Washington, retired ACP Clinton Conway, retired ACP Claude Whittaker, retired Senior Superintendent (SS) George Fraser, retired SS Michael Sutton, retired Superintendent Mark Gilbert, ACP Royston Andries-Junor, and Assistant Superintendent Marlon Kellman.
An elated Patrice Henry, who represented Slowe in the matter, told Stabroek News when contacted that the case was thrown out of court due to the prosecution not providing evidence that would suggest that the nine conspired to commit fraud.
He added that the prosecution failed to do disclosure and when they applied to have it done it was denied since the court had already begun the trial.
In 2021, the police had alleged that between March 1st 2019 and July 7th, 2020 at the Guyana Police Force Headquarters, Georgetown, Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, Gilbert, Andries-Junor, Washington, Sutton and Kellman, conspired together and with others unknown to defraud the GPF of $10,056,000 by paying Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, and Gilbert the funds without complying with the proper procedures, purportedly to do a review of the Guyana Police Force Standing Orders. It was noted that the review had already been conducted between July, 2018 and March, 2019 by the Strategic Planning Unit of the GPF.
A second charge stated that Sutton, being and performing duties as Finance Officer for the GPF, between July 1st, 2019 and July 31st, 2019, at the GPF Headquarters, Eve Leary, willfully misconducted himself by falsely signing seven payment vouchers as the accounting officer, which he was not authorised to do, enabling Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert to be paid a total of $1,776,000 without the approval of Daniella McCalmon, the Accounting Officer, and without any reasonable excuse or justification.
The accused were not allowed to plead to the indictable conspiracy charge and were granted bail in the sum of $100,000 each.
Sutton was granted a total of $200,000 bail due to the two charges against him.
The alleged fraud was unearthed during an investigation conducted by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), according to the GPF.
In a statement, the police had said that Leslie James, former Commissioner of Police, solely hired Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Gilbert and Fraser to conduct a complete revision of the Standing Orders in March 2019.
The police had also said James did not prepare a budget for the service that was offered or make contractual agreements with specifications of what was to be revised and the terms of payments. It was further stated that he did not receive approval from the Permanent Secretary of the then Ministry of Public Security or the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. Given the sum involved, the project was supposed to go to tender.
According to the statement, payment accounts were prepared individually from March, 2019 upon instructions from Andries-Junor who was Head of the Strategic Planning Unit (SPU). On his transfer from the unit in November 2019, he instructed the new Head of SPU, to continue making payments. This continued until February, 2020.
An examination of over 60 payment vouchers showed that Washington and Sutton signed 15 payment vouchers collectively as the accounting officer, while not having the authority to do such, police added.
At the time of the charge Slowe had told Stabroek News that the allegations levelled against him were false and malicious and designed to tarnish his “unblemished” reputation.
In an invited comment on the same day, Conway had expressed shock at the allegations. Conway had said that sometime in 2019, the then Commissioner of Police Leslie James invited him and a number of other retired officers to a meeting at the GPF Headquarters.
“…And he said he wants us to review the police Standing Orders… We agreed. Nothing about money….we on our own thought that it was a good idea for us to do some work for the police,” Conway said.
He had said he and the other former ranks commenced the work at the force’s Strategic Management Office. “….We did a total of 68,” he added.
During the process, Conway had explained, an ACP, who was at the time in charge of the unit, told them that James and his management team made a decision that those conducting the revision should be paid a “stipend”.
“…We continued the work….$3,000 per an hour. They at the Strategic Management Unit monitored our activities… We worked and then when the date for national and regional elections was announced, the management team said that we cannot use the office anymore because they were preparing it for elections,” Conway related.
He had added that after elections, the country experienced a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We were not recalled to do any other work. All the work that we did we saved and we put them on the computers that are at the Strategic Management Unit. We had no deadline when to complete all the Standing Orders. We did not negotiate for any payment,” Conway stated.
