DUDUS’ NULL AND VOID ASSETS?

The State-run Assets Recovery Agency says it will be going ahead with efforts to confiscate the assets of former Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. But the agency has formally applied for permission to discontinue the suit it had filed seeking orders to confiscate the assets of Kingston businessman Justin O’Gilvie, his wife Maxine and his two businesses. The Assets Recovery Agency was represented by attorney-at-law Michael Hylton in the Supreme Court today. The application to withdraw the claim stemmed from an order from the Supreme Court last December in which Justice Lennox Campbell issued certain directives when he lifted the orders freezing O’Gilvie’s assets. Following the in camera hearing today, Hylton told our news centre that the Assets Recovery Agency decided not to proceed with the case because it did not have the evidence to do so and witnesses were not available. O’Gilvie’s assets were frozen in 2010. The State had also seized the assets of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, who was about to be extradited to the United States on drugs and weapons charges.

At the same time, the Agency has withdrawn claims against the assets against Coke’s girlfriend, Stephanie Gayle; and the estate of his mother Patricia Halliburton. Halliburton died last year. Their lawyers rejected claims that the assets of Gayle and Halliburton were obtained illegally. They argue that the money laundering offense which the agency was relying on cannot be accepted since their clients obtained their assets in the 1990s and the money laundering offence under the 2007 Proceeds of Crime Act is not retroactive.
In the meantime, another case against O’Gilvie remains in the Sutton Street Resident Magistrate’s Court where the Assets Recovery Agency is seeking to forfeit $2.9 million belonging to him. The money was seized during a raid in 2010 on O’Gilvie’s company Incomparable Enterprises. O’Gilvie is claiming that the authorities actually removed $5.9 million which he legitimately earned from his business ventures.

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