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PHILIPSBURG – The Court in first Instance has sentenced former parliamentarian Rolando Brison to an unconditional prison sentence of six months for accepting bribes from businessman Alex Dijkhoffz. The public prosecutor also accused Brison of taking bribes from Robbie dos Santos and from Sunil Gehani, but the court acquitted Brison of these charges for lack of evidence. The prosecution demanded a 24-month prison sentence, but the court handed down a lower sentence because there was no proof for all of the allegations.
The court banned Brison for five years from holding a job as a civil servant and it also took away his right to be elected for five years.
The indictment against Brison reveals that he allegedly accepted bribes to the tune of more than $78,000 plus payments for hotels, airline tickets to and from the Netherlands and Miami and credit on Google Playstore.
As a member of parliament, Brison promoted crypto currency, pushed the approval of a new banking law and the establishment of a law that would charge a fee to tourists that stayed longer than 24 hours on the island. He also made efforts to legalize crypto currency as legal tender in St. Maarten and set up contacts with politicians for his paymasters.
But the charges related to Dos Santos and Gehani fell apart because Brison claimed successfully that he received payments from them in exchange for crypto currency. The court accepted this claim as a reasonable alternative scenario.
The court found that Brison provided Dijkhoffz and Dos Santos with relevant information related to the introduction of a national ordinance that would charge tourists that stayed longer than 24 hours on the island with a so-called health fee.
Brison also looked after the interests of Pascal Bataille, the owner of the Adonis hotel. The government had selected it as a quarantine hotel during he corona pandemic. Dijkhoffz had an interest in this matter too, because companies associated with him took care of cleaning and security.
Brison received several payments on Melkar, a prepaid card owned by N. Abaidahl, but the court was unable to establish that these payments were gifts. The prosecution stated that it was unable to track the legal source of Brison’s crypto-capital.
In the case of Dijkhoffz, the court ruled that Brison had accepted bribes and it sentenced the defendants to 6 months in prison. The court also confiscated substances that it labeled as “probably drugs” that were found in his car and in his house.
Brison has the option to appeal the verdict.
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