Lawyer wants fraud charges against convicted GRDB accountant consolidated

Prominent Attorney-at-Law Nigel Hughes has requested that the 17 remaining fraud-related charges against convicted Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) accountant, Peter Ramcharran, be consolidated. The Police prosecutor, however, has opposed this, asking that the matters be tried individually.

The matters are currently before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, who presides at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts. The charges alleged that Ramcharran colluded with former top officials at GRDB in omitting entries amounting to millions of dollars from the entity’s ledger.
Magistrate Isaacs-Marcus has since instructed both Hughes and the prosecution to layover submissions in support of their requests on March 26, 2021.
Back in February 2020, Ramcharran was found guilty as charged by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan for fraudulently omitting $145 million from the rice entity’s ledger. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Ramcharran filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence.
Weeks later, he was granted $2 million High Court bail pending the hearing and determination of the appeal. In relation to the pending charges, Ramcharran was also released on High Court bail after a bail application by his lawyer was refused by the Magistrate at his initial court appearance.
Ramcharran, of Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara, was charged by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), an arm of the Guyana Police Force. He faced 39 fraud-related charges. After the charges were laid, a Magistrate had issued a warrant for his arrest in 2017.
But Ramcharran, who was in Canada at the time, sought counsel and attempted to fight his extradition; he was unsuccessful when a Canadian court had denied an application and returned to Guyana in 2019 when he was handed over to Police at the airport and hauled before the court.