Ruel Reid, Fritz Pinnock fraud case stalled ahead of judicial review Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The fraud and corruption case against former Education Minister, Ruel Reid, and Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) President, Professor Fritz Pinnock, has been put on hold following an order by the Supreme Court.

The hold in the case is due to a judicial review hearing that has been scheduled for the matter. A date is yet to be set for that hearing to commence.

The disclosure of the hold on the case was made when the men and their co-accused appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Friday.

Reid and Pinnock were successful in their application to get a judicial review of a February 2021 ruling by Chief Parish Judge, Chester Crooks, that the cases against the men should go to trial.

The accused men are contending that Crooks should have removed himself from the hearing of the case in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court because he is a past student of Munro College in St Elizabeth, which Reid also attended.

Consequently, the accused are suggesting that Crooks should not have made any ruling in the case because of what they are contending was a conflict of interest on his part.

Accordingly, the men filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to determine whether Crooks’ ruling should be quashed.

That decision was granted earlier last year.

Hugh Small, the attorney representing the Financial Investigations Division (FID), had made an application to allow the fraud trial to go ahead, despite the judicial review application being granted.

However, the Supreme Court, in March of this year, dismissed the FID’s attempt to have the trial proceed.

The FID, through its legal team, is to make an application to appeal the Supreme Court ruling on September 26.

With the trial in the parish court on hold, Reid, Pinnock and Reid’s wife, Sharen; his daughter, Sharelle, and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Councillor for the Brown’s Town Division in St Ann, Kim Brown-Lawrence, all had their bails extended until October 3.

The five accused persons were charged in October 2019 on allegations that millions of dollars were defrauded from both the Ministry of Education and the CMU.

Reid and Pinnock are facing the bulk of the charges. They are charged with breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act, conspiracy to defraud, misconduct in a public office at common law, and beaches of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Sharen Reid and her daughter, as well as Brown-Lawrence, are all charged with possession of criminal property and conspiracy to defraud.

Hugh Wildman, who is representing Reid and Pinnock in the case, has long argued, even before Judge Crooks in December 2020, that the case against his clients should be dismissed because the FID Act does not empower the body to make arrests.

Wildman said the FID is purely an investigative body.

But Crooks disagreed with Wildman’s submissions.

Last November, the Court of Appeal refused both Reid and Pinnock leave to go to the United Kingdom Privy Council to seek to the have fraud charges against them dropped.

The accused were seeking to challenge the Financial Investigations (FID) Act in the Privy Council because the Supreme Court and later the Court of Appeal ruled that both men should mount their legal challenge in the parish court.

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