Derek Achong

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader and can­di­date for Ca­roni Cen­tral, David Lee, has been cleared of fraud charges re­lat­ed to tax ex­emp­tions on his ve­hi­cle as a Par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

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

Mag­is­trate Charles ruled that the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sus­tain the charges or pro­ceed to tri­al.

She al­so ac­quit­ted busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi of Sport Out­let Lim­it­ed, who faced a joint charge with Lee for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, au­thor­i­ties ac­cused the pair 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 charges in­volved $293,094.02 in Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), $298,650 in mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax, and $824,548.62 in cus­toms du­ty.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­leged that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship of the ve­hi­cle to ben­e­fit from tax ex­emp­tions grant­ed to MPs.

The al­leged of­fences oc­curred be­tween 24 March and 8 June 2019.

Au­thor­i­ties re­leased Lee on $1 mil­lion bail fol­low­ing the charges, which he de­nied from the out­set.

In a state­ment short­ly af­ter his ar­rest, Lee de­scribed the case as a "po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt and dis­trac­tion" or­ches­trat­ed by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment.

He main­tained that he owned the ve­hi­cle and had de­clared it in his an­nu­al sub­mis­sions to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

"Put sim­ply, I have been charged for a ve­hi­cle that I am the le­gal own­er of, but this is an is­sue I am con­fi­dent, giv­en the proof, will be vin­di­cat­ed in our na­tion’s court," he said.

Alex­ia Romero and Ran­dall Raphael al­so rep­re­sent­ed Lee.