PHILIPSBURG — Former parliamentarian and founder of the United St. Maarten party (USp) Frans Richardson was sentenced by the Court of Appeal to 19 months of imprisonment and ordered to pay 192,690 guilders ($666,307) into St. Maarten’s crime fund for corruption, bribery and conflict of interest in the so-called Aquamarine case. The court also took away Richardson’s right to be elected for five years.
The Aquamarine-case has to do with the construction of the building for Bureau Telecommunication and Post (BTP) and its maintenance contract, the public prosecutor’s office states in a press release. Richardson’s business partner, Anthony Carty was at the time the director of BTP.
The court ruling is a blow for Richardson, because in an earlier ruling the Court in First Instance sentenced him to 12 months of imprisonment. On appeal the prosecution demanded a sentence of 17 months.
Richardson’s ban as a political candidate has also increased. The Court in First Instance imposed a ban of three years and on appeal the prosecution demanded 3.5 years, but the judges went beyond that and made it five years.
The court’s order to pay more than $666,000 into the crime fund stems from Richardson’s role as shareholder of Actis, a company that was awarded the contract for implementing St. Maarten’s new telephone numbering plan. Another part of this ruling has to do with bribes Richardson pocketed as the chairman of the permanent parliamentary committee for Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transportation and Telecommunication in exchange for pushing a contract for a dredging company.
The court of appeal states in its January 24-ruling that Richardson was “guilty of accepting bribes as a member of parliament over a long period of almost six years. He has caused serious reputational damage to the prestige of the office purely for his own gain.”
The Court of Appeal agreed with the solicitor-general that it is particularly bad that Richardson had asked a businessman for a bribe on his own initiative. “This businessman therefore felt forced for years to pay large sums of money to obtain or retain a fair seat at the table.”
The ruling adds that Richardson has abused his parliamentary influence and that he enriched himself by accepting dividend payments “while he was directly partially assigned the supervision of that dividend-paying company.”
Read on…
Another one bites the dust
By Hilbert Haar
That politics and shenanigans go hand in hand is a public secret in St. Maarten but for a long time it looked like bent politicians could literally get away with anything. Those days are gone and that is something to be thankful for.
I don’t wish a prison sentence of 19 months or five years on anybody but, as former chief Prosecutor Taco Stein liked to say: “If you did the crime you do the time.”
I still think that the judicial process is fair, but I also know that not everybody shares this opinion. Take Frans Richardson for instance. How to describe this man? Everyone knows of his long time presence in local politics, from the long forgotten Island Council (as a member of the National Alliance) to the parliament, most recently as the founder and representative of the United St. Maarten party.
The Court in First Instance sentenced Richardson to 12 months of imprisonment and a ban from being a political candidate for three years. Richardson appealed the verdict which is, of course, his good right.
But when you appeal a court ruling you have to be careful what you wish for. I mean: what was Richardson thinking when he decided to go on appeal? That the higher court would hand him a lower verdict or even an acquittal? The former MP must have known damn well why he had gotten into hot water with the justice system to begin with.
But no. Maybe Richardson thought that his status as a former parliamentarian would save him, or that all three judges in the appeal court would have such an off-day that they would acquit him.
Bad idea. The court of appeal imposed a higher sentence: not twelve months behind bars but twenty giving him one month discount on that total. Not three years out of politics but five years.
Could things get any worse? I don’t think so, but of course, the appeals-ruling is not necessarily the end of the road for Richardson. He could go in cassation at the Supreme Court in The Hague but I doubt very much if such a move is going to get him out of trouble.
The only thing such a move would achieve is a postponement of his imprisonment and if that’s all he wants I would say: be my guest.
In the meantime, a second politician, Theo Heyliger, has reported to the Pointe Blanche prison to serve his 5-year sentence. So, with Richardson in the proverbial waiting room it is fair to say that another one has bitten the dust.
Heyliger and Richardson – two people who founded a political party and ended up behind bars (or are going to get there). Is this a coincidence? No.
Why not?
Because, as the cases of Heyliger and Richardson prove: power corrupts and people in power seldom have enough.
To add insult to injury it seems that politicians also have a warped sense of reality. I once asked the unforgettable former MP Louie Laveist why he kept appealing court verdicts, pointing out that each appeal (up to the Supreme Court) resulted in another newspaper story.
“But Mr. Haar,” Laveist said. “I am innocent.”
The sad thing is: I am sure that on this occasion Mr. Laveist was convinced that he was speaking the truth. Unfortunately, it was his truth and it had not much to do with reality.
