FID targets assets of five sentenced in Manchester fraud trial
Mentioned
Analysis
The article describes convictions for multimillion-dollar fraud involving the Manchester Municipal Corporation and subsequent Financial Investigations Division (FID) actions under the Proceeds of Crime Act to forfeit assets, which is directly tied to Jamaican government accountability and anti-corruption enforcement.
Full Article
MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Sanja Elliott, who was last Monday sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for multimillion-dollar fraud at Manchester Municipal Corporation, and four co-convicts, are to face the Manchester Circuit Court on September 16 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Parish Judge Ann-Marie Grainger granted the Financial Investigations Division (FID) committal of all five convicts to the Supreme Court during last week’s sentencing hearing.
Elliott’s co-convicts are former secretary manager and acting CEO of the municipal corporation David Harris, who was sentenced to 16 months in prison at hard labour; former temporary works overseer Kendale Roberts who was sentenced to 18 months at hard labour; carpenter/gardener Dwayne Sibbles who was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment at hard labour on the count of conspiracy to defraud; and TashaGaye Goulbourne-Elliott, wife of Sanja Elliott, who got a non-custodial sentence and was fined $3 million.
All five were initially convicted on May 15.
The committal application, which was made by attorney Gwayne Gray representing the FID, was unsuccessfully challenged by attorney Norman Godfrey who represented Elliott, Goulbourne-Elliott and Sibbles.
The FID is seeking to forfeit assets of the convicts based on the Proceeds of Crime Act which defines a criminal lifestyle, following what is considered to be the largest fraud case of a municipal authority in Jamaica.
Gray explained to theJamaica Observerby telephone that, “If there is no asset for forfeit then there is a pecuniary penalty order that the judge may grant…They were all convicted of offences that were stated under the second schedule of the Proceeds of Crime Act to be having a criminal lifestyle…a lot of investigations are taking place to ascertain whatever transactions they have engaged in for the last ten years. The Act presumes that once you have a criminal lifestyle, everything for the past 10 years since the commencement of the Act has been acquired through criminal benefit.”
The closely watched 11-month fraud trial has triggered widespread debate about the confines of the law in dealing with corruption.
Judge Grainger in sentencing Elliott, whom she described as the “ringmaster”, said “The maximum fines are not sufficient as it relates to Sanja Elliott.”
Those freed at the end of the 11-month-long trial were Sanja Elliott’s mother, Myrtle Elliott, and former commercial bank teller Radcliffe McLean.
Related Articles
Forfeiture hearing for five Manchester convicts postponed to next year
MANCHESTER, Jamaica — The forfeiture hearing for Sanja Elliott and his four co-accused who were sentenced on July 27 for multimillion-dollar fraud at the Manchester Municipal Corporation, has been postponed for the third time. The hearing which was brought forward to yesterday after being initially set for today, has now been delayed to July 2021 in the Manchester Circuit Court.…
5 years for $40m
MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Senior parish court judge Ann-Marie Grainger yesterday rejected bail applications by lawyers, pending appeal, after imposing custodial sentences on Sanja Elliott and three co-accused in the multimillion-dollar Manchester Municipal Corporation fraud trial here. Additionally, the judge rejected an appeal for leniency from counsel representing Elliot, the former deputy superintendent of roads and works, whom she described as the “ringmaster” in the defrauding of the corporation, and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment at hard labour.…
Crown points to the possession of criminal property
THE $400-million Manchester Municipal Corporation fraud trial ended on Friday, May 15, 2020 with the conviction of main accused 35-year-old Sanja Elliott, the corporation’s former deputy superintendent of road and works; his wife, Tasha-gaye Goulbourne-Elliott; two former employees of the corporation, David Harris, secretary/manager and acting chief executive officer, and Kendale Roberts, temporary works overseer; as well as Dwayne Sibblies, a former employee of Sanja Elliott. Those freed at the end of the trial were Sanja Elliott’s mother, Myrtle Elliott, and former commercial bank teller Radcliff McLean.…
Manchester fraud trial ringmaster mounts appeal, wants acquittal
SANJA Elliott, the former deputy superintendent of roads and works at the Manchester Municipal Corporation who was in 2020 sentenced to five years behind bars at hard labour for being the “ringmaster” in defrauding that entity of millions, has mounted an appeal seeking to have the court quash his conviction and acquit him. Elliott, following the trial which lasted over eight months, had been convicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud, obtaining money by false pretence, engaging in a transaction that involves criminal property, possession of criminal property, and an act of corruption by senior parish court Judge Ann-Marie Grainger .…