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Alleged elections fraud case… Trial for Lawrence, Mingo, others to commence this month
Kaieteur News- More than a year after they were charged for allegedly trying to rig the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections the court trial for Chairperson of the People’s National Congress (PNC), Volda Lawrence; former Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, and others is slated to commence this month.
The other defendants who are expected to go on trial this month are: A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) activist, Carol Smith-Joseph; GECOM’s Information Technology Officer, Enrique Livan and GECOM Clerks: Michelle Miller, Sheffern February and Denise Bab-Cummings.
Some of the charges the defendants are facing are misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit fraud, forging a document and forgery.
Mingo faces a joint charge with Lawrence, another with Smith-Joseph and two separate joint forgery charges. In addition to the joint charge with Mingo, Smith-Joseph also faces two individual charges. Moreover, Livan, who was named in a USB flash drive scandal surrounding the tabulations of votes that happened on March 5, 2020, was slapped with one fraud charge, and February, another GECOM employee, is facing two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud. Miller and Bab-Cummings, who are GECOM clerks, were both slapped with two fraud charges each.
The defendants matter is being heard by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court and the trial is set to commence in the last week of December 2021.
Statements of Poll (SOPs) and Statements of Recount (SORs) were handed over to the defendants’ attorneys on a previous hearing of the matter along with other statements and video evidence.
With the SOPs and SORs being disclosed the way has been cleared for the trial to commence.
Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes is representing Mingo, Lawrence and Smith-Joseph, while attorney-at-law Eusi Anderson, is representing Livan, Miller, February and Bab-Cummings.
The State’s team in the matter is being led by attorney-at-law Darshan Ramdhani, QC. Earlier this year, the Chief Magistrate had ruled on the mode of trial for Lawrence, Mingo and Smith-Joseph. The Magistrate had also ruled that the matter will be tried summarily rather than indictably.
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