Mark Bas­sant

Fraud Squad de­tec­tives have re­opened their in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions that Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for To­co/San­gre Grande Roger Mon­roe al­leged­ly used an ex­pired pow­er of at­tor­ney to with­draw mon­ey from his grand­fa­ther Per­cy Thomas’ ac­count two days af­ter he (Thomas) died on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2015.

Mon­roe was asked by Guardian Me­dia about he al­le­ga­tion dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Va­len­cia on Ju­ly 15. He said his hand were clean and not­ed that his lawyers were han­dling the mat­ter and could not say any more on the sub­ject at that time. In a sub­se­quent in­ter­view on Ju­ly 20, how­ev­er, Mon­roe told Guardian Me­dia he may have made a mis­take in the mat­ter.

“We had a meet­ing with my at­tor­ney, which was my grand­fa­ther’s at­tor­ney as well and dur­ing that dis­cus­sion, my at­tor­ney in­formed me a mis­take was made. I ac­cept­ed the fact the mis­take was made and they ac­cept­ed the fact it was a mis­take. They (rel­a­tives) them­selves did not even know that the pow­er of at­tor­ney dies when some­body dies. They set­tled that is­sue when I re­paid the mon­ey,” Mon­roe said then.

But one of Thomas’ sons, Dex­ter Thomas, who was the pri­ma­ry hold­er of the Roy­al Bank ac­count and his fa­ther— the sec­ondary hold­er, said in an in­ter­view last week the is­sue was big­ger than this.

“It’s not the putting back of the mon­ey that is trou­bling here, it’s the fact that he al­leged­ly used an ex­pired doc­u­ment to with­draw the mon­ey and that’s where the prob­lem lies,” Dex­ter Thomas had said.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, when ques­tioned about the mat­ter last week by Guardian Me­dia on nom­i­na­tion day in Point Cumana, de­fend­ed Mon­roe, say­ing it was a fam­i­ly mat­ter.

How­ev­er, Dar­ren Thomas, an­oth­er son of Per­cy Thomas, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that po­lice had tak­en a re­newed in­ter­est in the case.

“I went to vis­it them (Fraud Squad) on Wednes­day to do a fol­low-up per­son­al­ly and see what they say. Mr. Groomes gave the as­sur­ance they are work­ing on it and the is­sue was nev­er closed it’s just they had an au­dit and files were moved around and when he read the sto­ry in the Guardian he de­cid­ed to ask for the files and sent for it and re­ceived it and as­signed new team of­fi­cers to in­ves­ti­gate the sit­u­a­tion and they came yes­ter­day (Thurs­day)and took state­ments,” Thomas said.

Thomas said a state­ment was tak­en from him as well as the care­tak­er Lynette Paul his fa­ther’s cousin, who took care of him un­til his death.

“The state­ments they took were in re­la­tion to the ex­pired pow­er of at­tor­ney as well as the deeds per­tain­ing to what Roger showed on news last week,” Thomas said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out yes­ter­day to head of the Fraud Squad, Se­nior Supt Groomes, who said, “I have spo­ken to Mr Thomas.”

Oth­er se­nior po­lice sources con­firmed the mat­ter is be­ing probed.

Thomas said his fam­i­ly was re­lieved that the po­lice fi­nal­ly has tak­en a re­newed in­ter­est in the mat­ter and con­tend­ed that they had been try­ing for years to get this mat­ter prop­er­ly ad­dressed.