Clairmont Mingo finally turns up at court to face fraud charges

…case against him, Lawrence adjourned

Embattled Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo was Friday morning arraigned on the fraud charges filed by PPP’s agent, Charles Ramson Jr, back in March.

He was charged jointly with Chairperson of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) – the leading party of the APNU fraction of the coalition – Volda Lawrence. The charges against Mingo and Lawrence are in relation to the unverified declaration of results for Region Four – the country’s largest voting district.
They are being accused of forging official electoral documents in an effort to defraud the country.
While Lawrence was arraigned last month and placed a $100,000 bail, Mingo, however, did not make a court appearance as he was never served with the private criminal charges filed against them on March 16.
Hence, he was arraigned on Friday and was not required to plead to the indictable charge of conspiracy to commit fraud.
One of his lawyers, Attorney Darren Wade, told reporters that “this was the first time the charges were read against Mr Mingo and he was placed on self-bail – on his own recognisance”,
According to Wade, the matter was adjourned to October for statements and November 16 for case management.

Meanwhile, Lawrence, who was the lone party representative whose signature was found on the fraudulent declaration, also made her second court appearance on Friday during which additional time was given to the prosecution to prepare their case.
“The prosecutors are not ready. They claim that they have several pieces of evidence which they’re putting together etc… My lawyer [Nigel Hughes] has argued that they set a longer date so that the prosecutor will have the time to gather all the evidence so that when we come back, he can present those pieces of evidence to the court so we can move on with this matter,” Lawrence told reporters following the hearing.
Both Lawrence and Mingo will return to court on November 16.
Back in March, Ramson Jr, who had served as PPP/C’s Counting Agent, had filed private criminal charges against Mingo and Lawrence following the RO’s declaration of unverified results for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
The particulars of the charge state that Mingo, having been procured by Lawrence on or about March 5 at the Command Centre for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on High and Hadfield Streets, Georgetown, uttered to the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, the election results for Region Four, knowing it to be forged, with intent to defraud the people of Guyana.
GECOM, despite being barred by an injunction, went ahead and published the Form 24s [which is the election declaration] for all regions on its website. This included the Region Four unverified declaration.
Mingo’s declaration, which was subsequently set aside by Chief Justice Roxane George, was signed by him and Lawrence – the lone representative from the political parties that contested the elections. The other parties had objected to the declaration after the verification process was not fully complied to by the Returning Officer.
Meanwhile, the embattled Returning Officer is already facing other electoral fraud charges over his attempts to alter the March 2 elections results in favour of the APNU/AFC coalition. He was arraigned last week on four counts of misconduct in public office and was placed on $600,000 bail.
The first two charges against him allege that on March 5, 2020, at High and Hadfield Streets, Georgetown, while being a public officer, he willfully misconducted himself by declaring a result for District Four without ascertaining the total votes cast in favour of each list in the said District Four Regional and General Elections.
The other two charges allege that he committed the same offences, this time around on March 13, 2020, at the same GECOM High and Cowan Streets, Kingston Head Office, when he wilfully misconducted himself by declaring a result for District Four in the Regional Election of the said March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. (G8)