Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader David Lee has been freed of fraud charges re­lat­ed to his ve­hi­cle tax ex­emp­tion as a par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles dis­missed the con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges against Lee, af­ter up­hold­ing a no-case sub­mis­sion pre­sent­ed by his le­gal team led by Wayne Sturge and Mario Mer­ritt, of Regius Cham­bers.

Mag­is­trate Charles agreed with Lee’s lawyers that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed be­fore her to sus­tain the charges.

She al­so freed busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi, of Sport Out­let Ltd, who was joint­ly charged with Lee for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, the duo was ac­cused of con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State of $1.4 mil­lion in tax rev­enue, re­lat­ed to the im­por­ta­tion of a Mer­cedes Benz G63 AMG val­ued at over $2 mil­lion. The tax­es in the case in­clude $293,094.02 in Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), $298,650 in mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax and $824,548.62 in cus­toms du­ty.

Lee was ac­cused of false­ly claim­ing that the ve­hi­cle was his in or­der to claim tax ex­emp­tions en­ti­tled to him as an MP. The of­fences were al­leged to have oc­curred be­tween March 24 and June 8, 2019.

Lee, who was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Alex­ia Romero and Ran­dall Raphael, was re­leased on $1 mil­lion bail af­ter be­ing charged.

In their sub­mis­sions, Lee’s lawyers claimed there was no proof of an agree­ment be­tween Lee and Leong Poi to de­fraud the State.

“It is sub­mit­ted that the State has failed to lead ev­i­dence to sat­is­fy the el­e­ments of both the of­fences of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice as well as con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud,” they said.

They point­ed out that in his de­c­la­ra­tions to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in 2019 and 2020, he ad­mit­ted he took a $1.3 mil­lion loan from Leong Poi to pur­chase the ve­hi­cle for his per­son­al use.

“It was con­ced­ed in cross-ex­am­i­na­tion that there were no re­stric­tions on the source of fi­nanc­ing for the pur­chase of a ve­hi­cle by a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment seek­ing the en­ti­tle­ment of tax ex­emp­tions,” the lawyers said.

Not­ing that the le­gal ti­tle of the ve­hi­cle re­mained with Lee al­though it could have been law­ful­ly trans­ferred in 2021, they al­so point­ed out that there were no le­gal re­stric­tions on who could dri­ve or keep a ve­hi­cle pur­chased us­ing the ex­emp­tion.

Lee’s lawyers re­ferred to ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed by a po­lice of­fi­cer, who claimed she saw the ve­hi­cle parked at Leong Poi’s home in San Fer­nan­do.

“As­sum­ing the law pro­hib­it­ed the ve­hi­cle be­ing kept at the premis­es of an­oth­er (the law does not) dur­ing the pe­ri­od June 2019 to Ju­ly 2021 (a pe­ri­od of 731 days), the State, by the use of men­tal gym­nas­tics, is ask­ing that an in­fer­ence be drawn based on the sub­ject ve­hi­cle be­ing at the premis­es of Ac­cused No 2 (Leong Poi) a max­i­mum of five days dur­ing the “pro­hib­it­ed pe­ri­od” or, put it an­oth­er way, be­ing in pos­ses­sion 0.68 per cent of the time,” they said.

The lawyers not­ed that the po­lice did not per­form any sur­veil­lance on Lee’s Cas­cade home, which he shares with his wife, and at any of his busi­ness­es.

“It is fur­ther sub­mit­ted that the pe­ri­od, as well as in­stances of ac­tu­al sur­veil­lance, would be too mi­nus­cule to al­low the draw­ing of any in­fer­ences be it pos­i­tive or oth­er­wise,” they said.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Lee, thanked God for the out­come.

“My prayers were an­swered ... God is great,” he said.

He al­so thanked Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for stick­ing with him de­spite the charges, for which he al­ways de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

“She stood by my side for the past three years, through thick and thin, know­ing very well that a lot of peo­ple would have been doubt­ing my in­no­cence,” Lee, who is the UNC’s Ca­roni Cen­tral can­di­date in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, said.

“I re­al­ly want to thank her for the sup­port and loy­al­ty she has shown to me over these past few years. She did not wilt or bend un­der the pres­sures that I am sure she would have been un­der,” he added.

Lee said he was al­ways con­fi­dent he would be freed of the charges, which he de­scribed as “po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.”

“I have al­ways main­tained my in­no­cence and I now feel vin­di­cat­ed giv­en what was said about me by Row­ley, Stu­art Young, Im­bert and that whole po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion that took place over the past three years,” he said.

He not­ed that the case was the sub­ject of speech­es at PNM po­lit­i­cal ral­lies, in­clud­ing from at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, who pub­licly de­fect­ed from the UNC to the PNM.

“I no­ticed Lar­ry Lal­la, who is now rep­re­sent­ing the PNM, went on a tirade with my name on the week­end on a plat­form. I want to tell him, I am com­ing for you, Lar­ry Lal­la,” he said.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who has com­ment­ed on the case in the run-up to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, was not aware of the out­come when asked at a me­dia con­fer­ence in To­ba­go yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

While he de­clined to com­ment un­til re­ceiv­ing of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion, Young not­ed that it (the case) was not pros­e­cut­ed by the PNM or sit­ting Gov­ern­ment mem­bers.

“It cer­tain­ly was not any­one in the PNM Gov­ern­ment that charged Mr Lee, so I as­sume who­ev­er charged him had ev­i­dence that they thought would sup­port a charge,” Young said.

“From my ex­pe­ri­ence in the courts, it is for a court to de­ter­mine what hap­pens with what is brought be­fore it (the court),” he added.

An on­line Guardian Me­dia re­port on the case drew com­ments from sev­er­al cur­rent and for­mer UNC of­fi­cials.

Out­go­ing Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Arnold Ram said it “was al­ways a PNM witch-hunt.”

For­mer UNC En­er­gy Min­is­ter Fin­bar Gan­gar, who was freed of charges for fail­ing to de­clare for­eign bank ac­counts to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in 2016, al­so weighed in on the case.

“One less talk­ing point for the PNM. The DPP has some ex­plain­ing to do ... of all the po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed charges, this was the WORST,” Gan­gar said.

Leong Poi was rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, and Rus­sell Warn­er.