A na­tion­al of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic was yes­ter­day jailed for 12 months af­ter he at­tempt­ed to bribe an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer with US$400 to re­lease his cousin's seized pass­port.Car­los Marte, 32, of Mara­bel­la, was jailed when he ap­peared be­fore Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court and plead­ed guilty.Be­fore Welling­ton read the charge, he asked Marte if he could speak and un­der­stand Eng­lish. Marte said yes.

The mag­is­trate then read that on March 25 at Pot­ter Street, San Fer­nan­do, he cor­rupt­ly gave the sum of US$400 to Je­re­my Singh, an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer, as an in­duce­ment to un­law­ful­ly re­turn a pass­port be­long­ing to Luce­ly Gill Marte, the same (pass­port) hav­ing been seized by the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment of T&T pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The charge was laid un­der the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act.Marte was ar­rest­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Im­mi­gra­tion of­fice by PC Ramkissoon of San Fer­nan­do CID.

Court pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip told the court around 3.05 pm on Mon­day, Ramkissoon was on in­quiries at Pot­ter Street, San Fer­nan­do when he had a con­ver­sa­tion with Singh, of the San Fer­nan­do Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fice.Ramkissoon lat­er ob­served Marte hand­ing over the US cur­ren­cy to Singh.The of­fi­cer took pos­ses­sion of the US cur­ren­cy and count­ed it. Welling­ton asked Marte if he knew it was a crime to bribe an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer and the man said, "Yes, I tried to help my cousin."Marte said he came to Trinidad three years ago on a vis­it and fell in love with T&T. He said he al­so fell in love with a Tri­ni woman. He and the woman are now mar­ried.

Welling­ton told Marte he faced a fine of $500,000 and ten years im­pris­on­ment for the of­fence.Marte asked for a chance since he said it was his first of­fence.Welling­ton then sen­tenced him to 12 months and or­dered that the mon­ey be for­feit­ed.