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Saturday, February 15, 2025

Bigamy trial begins in Sando High Court

by

20120517

The case against a man who al­leged­ly got mar­ried twice in sev­en years with­out di­vorc­ing his first wife be­gan in the San Fer­nan­do High Court yes­ter­day. Dex­ter Alexan­der, 43, plead­ed not guilty to the charge of bigamy when the mat­ter be­gan un­der Jus­tice An­tho­ny Car­mona. The charge al­leges that on Oc­to­ber 26, 1996 he mar­ried Rhon­da Ali­cia Forbes dur­ing the life­time of his first wife De­bra Mitchell. The charge, laid un­der Sec 55 (1) of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of four years im­pris­on­ment. The State is al­leg­ing that Alexan­der got mar­ried to Mitchell, then 23, on Sat­ur­day Au­gust 23, 1989 and then mar­ried Forbes, then 23, in Oc­to­ber 1996.

The State opened the case, but was un­able to call any wit­ness be­cause Alexan­der's moth­er-in-law died on Wednes­day night. His at­tor­ney, Car­ol Foder­ing­ham, re­quest­ed an ad­journ­ment be­cause the ac­cused had to make the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions for her fu­ner­al. She said the fu­ner­al might ei­ther be to­mor­row or Sun­day. Giv­ing the ju­ry a syn­op­sis of the case, State pros­e­cu­tor Jen­nifer Mar­tin said Alexan­der, then 27, got mar­ried to Forbes at La­choos Road, Pe­nal in Oc­to­ber 1996. Pas­tor Pe­ter Fran­cis con­duct­ed the cer­e­mo­ny and the mar­riage was reg­is­tered. Forbes knew the ac­cused for 11 months.

The cou­ple, she said, had re­ceived coun­selling pri­or to the wed­ding. Some­time lat­er an ar­gu­ment took place be­tween the ac­cused and his sis­ter in the pres­ence of Forbes. Forbes then sought to have the mar­riage an­nulled. PC Ken­neth Mor­gan con­duct­ed en­quiries at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al Of­fice and ob­tained the mar­riage li­cence for Mitchell and Forbes. Alexan­der sub­se­quent­ly went to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau ac­com­pa­nied by his at­tor­ney where he met PC Mor­gan. The pros­e­cu­tor said Alexan­der told the of­fi­cer, "I know about a mar­riage in a church and I know about a cer­e­mo­ny in ah house." Mar­tin said Alexan­der was ar­rest­ed and charged on Au­gust 3, 2003.

She was in­struct­ed by State at­tor­ney Chris Ram­lal. The mat­ter was ad­journed to next week Tues­day.


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