Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and MP for Ca­roni Cen­tral David Lee has been re-ar­rest­ed on con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges that were dropped six months ago.  

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that, up un­til late yes­ter­day evening, Lee was re­ceiv­ing treat­ment un­der po­lice guard at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter feel­ing un­well short­ly fol­low­ing his ar­rest.

Mean­while, his po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is back­ing him in his bid to beat the charges again.

Short­ly af­ter 4 pm yes­ter­day, via a me­dia re­lease, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said, “Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro re­ceived ju­di­cial war­rants around 12.15 pm to­day, Tues­day 7th Oc­to­ber 2025, for the ap­pre­hen­sion of Mr David Lee, the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­roni Cen­tral, and Mr Hugh Leong Poi, the Pro­pri­etor of Sport Out­let Lim­it­ed.”

The re­lease added, “These war­rants were filed by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) pur­suant to Sec­tion 23(5) of the In­dictable Of­fences (Pre­lim­i­nary En­quiry) Act, Chap­ter 12:01.”

The TTPS said with­out de­lay and in ac­cor­dance with its le­gal man­date, both Lee and Leong Poi were tak­en in­to cus­tody by of­fi­cers and are present­ly un­der­go­ing stan­dard pro­cess­ing pro­ce­dures.

It added that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­mains com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the rule of law and ex­e­cut­ing all ju­di­cial in­struc­tions with in­tegri­ty, im­par­tial­i­ty, and pro­ce­dur­al rigour.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Lee sur­ren­dered to po­lice at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Short­ly af­ter sur­ren­der­ing, Lee com­plained of feel­ing un­well and was tak­en to hos­pi­tal, where he re­mained un­der po­lice guard.

Up to late last evening, his at­tor­neys were await­ing word on his pro­cess­ing, as they want­ed to file an emer­gency bail ap­pli­ca­tion, which they would have to do vir­tu­al­ly. Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a com­ment yes­ter­day. The PM said, “We have re­spect for the courts of the land. Min­is­ter Lee was pre­vi­ous­ly ac­quit­ted of these al­le­ga­tions. Now that the charges have been re-laid, we have con­fi­dence in the courts to de­liv­er a just re­sult.”

The PM did not re­spond to ques­tions on whether or not she will con­sid­er re­mov­ing Lee from her Cab­i­net.

In Au­gust, the Prime Min­is­ter warned her min­is­ters and MPs that she would “buss” their heads if they were caught in cor­rup­tion and not per­form­ing their du­ties. She added that they would not be shield­ed from ac­count­abil­i­ty.

There was no ac­tiv­i­ty out­side of the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing. Guardian Me­dia was the on­ly me­dia house present in the af­ter­noon un­til the evening pe­ri­od, and there were no Cab­i­net mem­bers or gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials seen go­ing in or out of the build­ing.  

At the time, it was re­port­ed that Lee was not in the build­ing but was in­stead re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the hos­pi­tal.

The is­sues fac­ing Lee start­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2022, when the Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi were charged with con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State of $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es over the im­por­ta­tion of a $2 mil­lion Mer­cedes-Benz G63 AMG, with pros­e­cu­tors al­leg­ing that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship to ben­e­fit from par­lia­men­tary tax ex­emp­tions.

Lee, who de­nied the al­le­ga­tions and de­scribed them as a po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt, was re­leased on $1 mil­lion bail. On April 7, 2025, Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles dis­missed all charges, rul­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence af­ter Lee’s at­tor­neys suc­cess­ful­ly made a no-case sub­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard lat­er con­firmed that a High Court judge would re­view the mat­ter to de­ter­mine if it should still pro­ceed to tri­al.

Mario Mer­ritt, Alex­ia Romero, and Ran­dall Raphael rep­re­sent­ed Lee at the time. That same le­gal team re­mains.