GOVERNMENT is going after every cent paid out to Jamaican-born King's Counsel Vincent Nelson.

In response to Nelson's $96 million claim for compensation for an alleged breach of an indemnity agreement to protect him from prosecution, the State, last month, fired its own salvo in a counterclaim.

The counterclaim, filed along with a re-amended defence on November 7, alleges Nelson received the money as a result of 'unlawful and unjust enrichment,' at the expense of the people of TT.

In his lawsuit alleging a breach of the indemnity agreement, first filed in February and re-amended in June, Nelson said he incurred costs and expenses associated with his notarised statement which he gave on October 26, 2017. The statement disclosed the alleged criminal conspiracy and criminal enterprise with former attorney general Anand Ramlogan and ex-UNC senator Gerald Ramdeen.

The defence said, 'for the very reason it was illegal as being against public policy to agree not to disclose the claimant's notarised statement, it would be illegal as being contrary to public policy to agree to compensate (him) for any damage suffered…any such agreement would be illegal and unenforceable.'

In May 2019, Nelson, 62, a tax attorney who lives in the UK, was indicted on three charges of conspiring to commit money laundering, misbehaviour in public office and conspiracy to commit an act of corruption. The misbehaviour charge was discontinued after he entered a plea deal with the Office of the DPP.Justice Malcolm Holdip sentenced him in March 2020 and ordered him to pay a total of $2.25 million in fines which he also wants the State to pay. Those fines become due on January 3, 2023, as the payment of all fines, except maintenance, was deferred several times because of the covid19 pandemic.

On October 10, the DPP announced he was stopping the case against Ramlogan and Ramdeen because Nelson was unwilling to testify until his civil claim against the State came to an end.

Nelson claims if not for his conviction - which he also claims was not part of his agreement with the Government - he would have returned to practise law for 10 years until his retirement in 2028 when he turned 71.

He is claiming the $96 million for these 'lost years' of work. Nelson said he had no funds saved for a pension and it was always his intention to return to work as soon as he was cured of cancer. Nelson says before his conviction he earned an average annual salary of £1.4 million.

But the State contends any income Nelson earned since his corrupt agreement to pay kickbacks to Ramlogan, or could have earned since then, would be premised on his continued dishonest and corrupt failure to disclose that he had 'corruptly agreed to pay the said kickback to Ramlogan.'

It also said his inability to earn an income as a lawyer would only be possible if the continued to conceal his corrupt activities so any losses he incurred were 'irrecoverable' by him from the State, which, in any event, was rigorously denied several times in the 37-page re-amended defence and