Last week Thursday 5th April, a mixed jury of nine women and three men returned a split verdict of guilty against Mr. Donley Wellington Saunders of #6 St. Peters Place, St. Kitts.
The charge was fraudulent conversion, a technical and complicated legal jargon that the twelve jurors, ordinary working people in all probability never understood.
Donley is the holder of an Associate College Degree in Marketing. He has had an outstanding career as a business and administrative executive.
Up to last week Thursday, Donley was the highly regarded Director of Housing at the International University of Nursing and of the International University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine. Donley was a valued employee from the inception of these higher education institutions in 2004.
From March 2007, for the next four years, Donley Saunders was given additional responsibilities and was appointed Administrator of the twin universities and Director of Human Resources in addition to his substantive position of Director of Housing.
In a staff numbering close to one hundred employees, Donley Saunders was number four in the chain of command, earning an income of around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year.
Donley was told a funny thing three and a half years ago by the late Dr. Robert Ross, founder of the two Universities situated at Camps Estate, to the West of Basseterre. Dr. Ross then living in New York told Donley, that he had been paid a visit in New York by the Prime Minister of St, Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Denzil Douglas.
Dr. Douglas wanted Dr. Ross to know that Donley was under investigation by the police.
It will come as no surprise that Donley Saunders has been a platform speaker for the Peoples Action Movement over many years and a key coordinator of the successful 2010 election campaign of the Hon. Eugene Hamilton in the area of St. Peters.
People are entitled to ask why Dr. Douglas put himself out of the way to bear that news to Donley’s employer, and with what intention.
Suffice it to say that the International Universities did not believe that Donley Saunders was a criminal and continued to place their faith in his innocence.
People are wondering what was the reaction of Dr. Douglas, when having gone to tell Dr. Ross what he told him, Dr. Douglas still saw Donley Saunders being highly regarded by his employers.
But what was it that the police were investigating Donley Saunders for?
Let us remind ourselves that the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis holds a world record for the number of murders per capita under the Douglas administration.
People would be astonished to learn that the police investigation concerned a building contract and the wild claims of a disgruntled foreign investor in relation to the remarkable generosity shown by Donley Saunders to the disgruntled man from Miami.
Donley already was functioning at his high level at the twin international universities when the man from Miami, a dentist, asked Donley as a favour to him, to supervise the construction of two dwelling houses at Turtle Beach on the South East Peninsula.
Mr. Saunders is not a builder. He is not an engineer. He is not an architect. He is not technically trained or experienced in Construction. The dentist from Miami knew that.
The Miami dentist knew something else; he knew that he could afford to build the two luxury homes from his pocket, sell them at a profit and use the profit to build a third luxury home on his one acre plot.
The dentist plan was to build each home for USD $750,000.00, to seek duty-free concessions from our Government in doing so, and to remain in Miami pulling teeth while his project unfolded in St. Kitts.
His wife had been introduced to Donley some years before as a supplier of office furniture and equipment, while Donley worked as purchasing manager briefly, for the newly opened St. Kitts Marriott Resort Hotel.
Not yet married to the dentist the wife and Donley took to each other as business associates and became friends on that level. When the dentist devised his profit-making scheme, the idea was that his wife, whose name is not on the deed for the land, would rent an apartment in St. Kitts and stick around to supervise the building project.
For reasons that are not clear, the idea of the wife spending so much time in St. Kitts fell through and instead she started a new company in Miami.
The dentist trading on Donley’s business association with his wife, had the gall to actually ask Donley to be his project manager in his profit making scheme.
It is estimated that the dentist was looking to make US one million dollars from building and selling the two homes. He did not offer to pay Donley Saunders any money. He asked him to do this incredible service for him as a favour, so that he could stay in Maini and pull teeth. Equally incredibly, Donley Saunders agreed to perform this service at no cost. Donley used to go to Turtle Beach, dodging potholes on the Peninsula road every day to check on the dentist building scheme.
The dentist put Donley’s name on an account and asked Donley to pay the contractor and pay for materials; pay for excavation; pay for everything. Donley did it diligently, faithfully, honestly, self-sacrificially. He has estimated that he devoted five hundred hours of his quality time to assist the dentist.
But the price of cement skyrocketed from $15.90 per bag to $21.60 per bag; the price of steel also skyrocketed; excavation costs skyrocketed because the land was on a slope overlooking the sea and was rocky; and the Development Control and Planning Board ordered the builder to construct two retaining walls, measuring nearly three hundred feet in length between them; 6-9 feet in height; twelve inches thick; with 4-foot footings throughout their entire length of pure concrete and steel.
Suffice it to say that the dentist stayed in Miami pulling teeth and told himself that his project cost had cost overruns. Next thing the dentist worked out Donley Saunders using his money.
The ungrateful dentist turned on Donley Saunders and accused him, the same Donley Saunders who he asked to do him this big favour.
Before you knew it, police got involved; Prime Minister Douglas got involved; and Donley Saunders fate was put in the hands of twelve ordinary jurors with no understanding of what a sophisticated building contract is about.
Fair minded citizens should deplore and condemn the decision by the Douglas government to prosecute Donley Saunders over a building contract.
The decision to prosecute has destroyed Donley Saunders’s life. He is incarcerated pending sentencing in the next Assizes to be held in May. He has lost his job; his mortgage debt which he was servicing will rapidly go into default; and he will lose his assets. His friends and family are devastated; they know Donley to be a decent honest and honourable man; a loyal friend and a person of the highest integrity. They are asking, what went wrong with our justice system? Why put police officers on a case like that? To save a Miami dentist from hiring a lawyer? Or to wreak political vengeance using the justice system as a cloak and dagger? Let Denzil Douglas take warning from this dangerous precedent that has been set.
$71 million has been spent from Social Security monies, poor people’s monies at Beacon Heights by cronies of the present government. The Director of Social Security complained that not one house was built for all that expenditure. Nobody is under investigation for that $71 million dollars YET!!!
$250 million has been spent on the LaVallee golf course and no golf course is there. But nobody is under investigation by the police for that YET!!! The list goes on and on and on.
It seems that the white collar crime unit of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force will have to be expanded to deal with all of the so-called development money which has been ripped off from this country under the present government.
Somebody had better tell Denzil Douglas and the rest of them that there is no statute of limitation on police investigation.
Tell them wet dey han’ and wait for arwe.
*************************
DISCLAIMER
This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKNVibes.com. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical error within press releases and commentaries. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of SKNVibes.com, its sponsors or advertisers.
