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Prosecution wants to amend charges; consolidate matters
Elections fraud cases…
Kaieteur News – The prosecution for the case where several persons were charged for their alleged attempt to rig the March 2020 General and Regional elections has made two applications to the court seeking to have all the matters consolidated and to make amendments to the charges.
Former CEO of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield
The electoral fraud charges were brought against, former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Keith Lowenfield; Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers; former Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, and Opposition Member of Parliament, Volda Lawrence. The other defendants include: 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.
PNC Chairperson, Volda Lawrence
On July 15, when the matter was called before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts the prosecution led by attorney-at-Law Darshan Ramdhani, QC and includes Glenn Hanoman, Mark Conway, Ganesh Hira, Arudranauth Gossai, and George Thomas – made two applications to the court.
Sheffern February
The State’s team asked the court to consolidate the matters to have the elections fraud cases tried before one magistrate instead of three. In addition to the Chief Magistrate, some of the matters were assigned to Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus and Senior Magistrate Leron Daly. As it relates to the second application, the prosecution wants to make some amendments to the current charges that were brought against the defendants.
Enrique Livan
Based on the two applications that were made to the court, Chief Magistrate McLennan adjourned the matter to October 6, 2022, when she is expected to rule on the applications in relation to making amendment to the charges. Notably, no date has been set for the magistrate to rule on the application seeking to consolidate the matters. The lawyers representing the defendants include: attorney-at-Law Nigel Hughes, Eusi Anderson, Ronald Daniels, and Konyo Sandiford.
Former Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo
The charges the defendants face relate to misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit fraud, forging a document and forgery. Lowenfield was slapped with three counts of misconduct in public office and three counts of forgery, while Myers was slapped with two counts of misconduct in public office.
Michelle Miller
Mingo and Lawrence are facing a joint charge, which alleges that on March 5, 2020, in Georgetown, with intent to defraud the public, they uttered a certain forged document, that is to say, a report purporting to be a true declaration of all votes cast in District Four for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections, knowing said report to be forged.
APNU+AFC Activist, Carol Smith-Joseph
Mingo also faced another joint charge with Smith-Joseph. That charge alleges that on March 13, 2020, they uttered a forged document purporting to be a true report of all votes cast in the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections, while knowing that the report was forged.
Denise Bab-Cummings.
Smith-Joseph faces two individual charges which state that on March 13, 2020, at High and Hadfield Streets, Georgetown, she conspired with Mingo and others to declare a fraudulent count of votes for District Four for both the general and regional elections. Additionally, 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.
Former GECOM’s DCEO, Roxanne Myers
February is facing two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud. Miller and Bab-Cummings were both slapped with two fraud charges each. It is allege that between March 2 and August 2, 2020, at Georgetown, Mingo, conspired with Lawrence, Smith-Joseph, February, Livan, Bab-Cummings, Miller and others to defraud the electors of Guyana by declaring a false account of votes for the elections.
In October 2021, Statements of Poll (SOPs) and Statements of Recount (SORs) were handed over to the defence along with other statements and video evidence and prior to that, Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan had ruled on the mode of trial for the matters to be tried summarily, as opposed to indictably.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) had announced in August 2020, that they will be conducting a comprehensive investigation into the criminal conduct of the former GECOM officials and others, in relation to the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and the events that followed. During the probe, several GECOM officials were arrested and placed before the court to face electoral fraud charges.
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