Re­peat­ed de­lays in re­pay­ing an over $100,000 debt to a for­mer client have land­ed a lawyer a two-week stint in prison.

At­tor­ney Kavi­ta Crys­tal Per­sad was com­mit­ted to the Women's Prison in Arou­ca for 14 days as she was held in con­tempt of court by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, yes­ter­day.

The con­tempt pro­ceed­ings against Per­sad, of Old Fac­to­ry Road, Pi­ar­co, stemmed from a law­suit filed by her for­mer client Kyle Hope-Singh, three years ago.

In his case, Hope-Singh claimed that in Sep­tem­ber 2022, he en­tered in­to an agree­ment with Per­sad for her to pay US$14,540 for a new so­lar portable pow­er sta­tion for his home.

Hope-Singh trans­ferred $109,050 to Per­sad's bank ac­count and was forced to pur­sue lit­i­ga­tion af­ter she failed to make the pay­ment to the sup­pli­er with­in two days as promised by her un­der their agree­ment.

In Ju­ly 2023, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad grant­ed Hope-Singh a de­fault judg­ment af­ter Per­sad failed to prop­er­ly de­fend the case.

Hope-Singh's lawyer Bran­don Ra­jku­mar brought con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings af­ter she failed to make the pay­ment in ac­cor­dance with the judg­ment.

While the pro­ceed­ings were at a pre­lim­i­nary stage, Per­sad en­tered in­to a con­sent or­der un­der which she promised to make the pay­ment in late Ju­ly, last year.

Ra­jku­mar re­in­stat­ed the pro­ceed­ings af­ter she again failed to make the pay­ment.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions, Ra­jku­mar called on Jus­tice Seep­er­sad to com­mit her to 60 days in prison for wil­ful­ly dis­obey­ing pre­vi­ous court or­ders.

"She does not de­serve the court's le­nien­cy," Ra­jku­mar said.

Ra­jku­mar al­so claimed that an­oth­er client suc­cess­ful­ly pur­sued con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings against Per­sad over a sep­a­rate un­paid debt and she was al­so com­mit­ted.

Per­sad claimed that she at­tempt­ed to meet the pay­ment dead­line but was de­layed as she fell ill.

She al­so claimed that her lawyer could not make an ap­pli­ca­tion to vary the or­der as he suf­fered lig­a­ment dam­age and could not walk.

"I am still mak­ing ar­du­ous ef­forts to clear up this mat­ter as soon as pos­si­ble," Per­sad said.

Re­fer­ring to the sep­a­rate pro­ceed­ings against her by a third par­ty, Per­sad claimed that the com­mit­tal was stayed pend­ing an ap­peal.

She al­so claimed that she was not aware of the po­ten­tial ram­i­fi­ca­tions for fail­ing to make the pay­ment as she said such was not ex­plained when the court or­der was served on her.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed her claims.

"It is dif­fi­cult to con­tend that there is a breach of nat­ur­al jus­tice as she was ful­ly aware of the terms of the or­der and even con­sent­ed as to how this debt should be re­paid," he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so not­ed that Per­sad did not have the au­thor­i­ty to pro­vide for­eign ex­change ser­vices as she did with Hope-Singh.

"As an at­tor­ney-at-law, one has to en­sure they do not em­bark on ac­tion that flouts the law in any way," he said.

"There is a height­ened de­gree of law­less­ness in T&T that this court will not tol­er­ate," he added, as he not­ed that cit­i­zens in­clud­ing lawyers have a du­ty to com­ply with court or­ders.

He said that the sep­a­rate com­mit­tal pro­ceed­ings were ir­rel­e­vant to the case be­fore him.

Per­sad was de­tained by High Court Mar­shals im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the hear­ing at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that she was held back in the court­room un­til of­fi­cers of the Court and Process Branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) ar­rived to take her to the prison as there are no hold­ing bay fa­cil­i­ties at the lo­ca­tion, which hous­es on­ly civ­il courts af­ter they (the courts) were trans­ferred from the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain.

In June, last year, Per­sad was charged for al­leged­ly steal­ing $224,625 from a client.

She was ac­cused of ac­cept­ing the pay­ment but fail­ing to pro­vide the le­gal ser­vices she was hired to do.

Per­sad was re­leased on $350,000 bail.