Philipsburg: --- The joint court of appeals has thrown out three of the five charges brought against former commissioner of labour Louie Laveist. Laviest was convicted for accepting airline tickets to travel to Canada from BEMAL enterprises or BEMBO and $10,000 from said company, the court also found proven that Laveist accepted $6,000 from Bargains Unlimited which was paid to Culture Club foundation in exchange for working permits even though he had received a negative advice from the labour department.The court found that Laveist had approached Bargains Unlimited for sponsorship for his foundation on December 7th and by December 10th the working permits for the company's workers were granted even though there was a negative advice.
The court convicted Laveist to six months suspended sentence with three years probation; he was also banned from public office for the next three years. The only way Laveist would serve his six month sentence is if he committed another crime within the next three years. Laviest also has to pay Naf.5000.00 or spend 55 days behind bars.
The appellate court also indicated in their ruling that the only reason Laviest received such a light sentence is because the investigating officers used illegal measures to obtain evidence against him.
Those illegal measures is the tapping the former commissioner's phone for at least two weeks as well as surveying his house and movement for the same period of time. The court said the investigators (Marachusees) violated the councilman's privacy. Tapping ones phone is a violation of ones rights based on the human rights charter. The court threw out the charges of forgery regarding the forging of the minutes of the Culture Club foundation for the purpose of defrauding AMFO of Naf 22,750. The court also found that the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to show that the barber shop in which Samuel Boney was working belonged to Laveist as such the charge of hiring an illegal worker was also thrown out.
In an invited comment Attorney at Law Cor Merx said right now Mr. Laveist should celebrate since three of the five charges were thrown out by the appeal court. Merx said in another week both him and his client would announce if they are going to appeal the verdict since they are still studying the verdict which was handed out late Thursday. The Laveist case is the first major criminal case Merx handled since he was sworn into the bar. It is clear that Merx managed to show the appeal court that the charges brought against Laveist were erroneous.
Should Laviest accept this conviction then he would have to resign from his seat as an Island councilman, which would definitely affect the current government. SMN News learnt that Laviest is already contemplating appealing the verdict even though it is in his favor. Efforts made to contact Laveist for a comment proved futile up to press time.
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