Member of Parliament Frans Richardson at the Courthouse. (File photo)
PHILIPSBURG--Member of Parliament (MP) Frans Richardson was sentenced to 36 months for his role in an investigation into corruption at Port of St. Maarten, for which he was arrested and held in pre-trial detention early 2018. He was also banned from membership in elected bodies for five years, the Court of First Instance announced on Wednesday.
Richardson immediately filed an appeal.
Richardson, who had proclaimed his innocence during the hearings in the so-called “Emerald II” case, which took place mid-December 2019, was found guilty as charged, the judge announced during a video conference with Curaçao.
In this case, Richardson had to answer to charges of bribery, accepting US $180,000 on July 30, 2012, and $190,000 on December 20, 2012. He was also suspected of laundering these amounts and tax fraud for failing to report them on his income tax return, between January 2013 and December 2014.
The Court found Richardson guilty of accepting bribes of $370,000 altogether, money-laundering and tax fraud. The MP had abused his position as a lawmaker and had an “undermining influence on society” together with his co-defendants in this case, local businessman O’Neal Arrindell and suspended Port St. Maarten Group of Companies (PSGC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Mingo (see related article), the judge stated in the verdict. Also, Richardson had failed to admit his wrongdoings, the judge said.
The Prosecutor’s Office had called for three years in prison and a five-year ban on his electoral rights. The Prosecutor had also called for Richardson’s immediate incarceration, but the Court turned down the request because Richardson’s pre-trial detention had been suspended for almost two years already.
During his trial, Richardson admitted to having made mistakes in filing his tax returns, for which he offered his apologies. However, he denied the other charges. These included the accusation that he had taken a bribe from his family member, close friend and co-suspect Arrindell in exchange for awarding dredging company Devcon TCI Ltd. a multi-million-dollar contract.
Richardson also denied that the money paid to him by Arrindell, who was an agent with Devcon and liaison and public relations officer for the Port, had been a bribe. According to Richardson and Arrindell, the $370,000 was considered a loan after Richardson ran into financial difficulties with his company Paradise Real Estate NV.
Lawyer Sjamira Roseburg had argued with the Court to declare the Prosecutor’s case against the MP inadmissible and to acquit her client of all charges, or to dismiss him from all prosecution.
She accused the investigators and the Prosecutor’s Office of “tunnel vision” in this case and said the charges against her client had not been properly investigated.
However, the Court dismissed these elements in the lawyer’s pleadings and said Roseburg and her client, who had declined to give any statements during the investigation, had failed to provide any credible alternative scenarios concerning the payments. Furthermore, they also had not submitted sufficient evidence in the form of documents to substantiate their claim that the payments were related to a loan.
Bribery proven, the Court took into consideration that Richardson and Arrindell had given differing statements about the purpose of the loan.
Devcon president John Chellgren, who was heard as a witness, had said he was convinced that money was paid to politicians, among them Richardson, who was a member and later chairman of the parliamentary committee of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT), at the time. The payments were made to obtain the dredging project, for which Arrindell received $2.9 million in his bank account.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Arrindell had received $800,000 for his service, $370,000 of which he deposited in two instalments on Richardson’s bank account in Anguilla.
