CMU cash flow report clears hurdle in fraud trial

A report related to the movement of money into and out of a Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) account has been admitted into evidence in the ongoing fraud trial involving former Education Minister Ruel Reid and four co-accused.

An objection by defence attorneys to the 12-page report was overruled on Monday by Senior Parish Court Judge Sanchia Burrell, who is presiding over the trial at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

Prosecutors are expected to go through the report today with a former CMU executive, who has been giving evidence since last week.

That witness testified yesterday that the report, titled ‘Canteen Cash Book NCB [National Commercial Bank] Current Account [number redacted]’, was prepared on his instructions by an employee in the finance or treasury department at the time.

It is one of three reports that were handed over to detectives at the Financial Investigations Division (FID), the witness testified.

He acknowledged that when he handed over the report to the FID, it was the first time he was seeing it, but explained that “the requests [for the reports] were made of me and I made a request of my team members”.

“A number of requests were made of us at the same time. There was an element of impatience for us to produce the report. So I simply passed the reports to the FID,” the witness testified.

Reid, his wife Sharen, and their daughter Sharelle are on trial, along with former CMU President Professor Fritz Pinnock and Kim Brown Lawrence, a Jamaica Labour Party-aligned councillor, for multiple fraud-related crimes.

The charges are related to a scheme that was allegedly used to siphon more than $25 million in public funds through fake jobs, sham contracts and bogus invoices between 2016 and 2019.

“On October 26, you gave evidence that one of the reports related to the movement of funds from one particular account. How did you come to know this knowledge?” asked the prosecutor, who led the former executive through his evidence.

“One of the reports, as I recall, showed funds in and out of an account and we were asked to identify where the funds were moved to or from, and we supported that request by copies of bank statements,” he replied.

Defence attorneys argued, in their first objection to the inclusion of the report, that the witness did not provide sufficient information about his knowledge of the document and its content.

Burrell ruled that the objection was upheld “in part” and directed prosecutors to elicit more evidence to demonstrate that the former CMU executive was more than a custodian of the report.

The trial continues today.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com