The verdict in the civil asset forfeiture case filed against people accused of serious criminal conduct linked to the construction of the Piarco Airport development project almost three decades ago is the only outcome in a complex fraud case that has dragged on in both local and foreign courts at snail's pace.
On Wednesday, a jury in a Miami, Florida found former government minister Brian Kuei Tung, Maritime Insurance executive Steve Ferguson and co-conspirator Raul Gutirrez Jr, who were accused of corruption in the award of contract in the airport project guilty. The government can now seek up to US$100 million in compensation.
In its Miami claim, the State claimed that Ferguson, Kuei Tung and Gutierrez fraudulently engaged in a scheme to overcharge TT for three contracts related to the airport project and that this “Piarco Airport Enterprise” conspired to ensure that overpriced bids submitted by the companies they controlled would be chosen to perform the contracts.
“The Republic claims that Steve Ferguson, Brian Kuei Tung, and Raul Gutierrez, Jr., as members of the Piarco Airport Enterprise, engaged in mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and the destruction of evidence in furtherance of their scheme to defraud,” read the instructions given to the jury by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Reemberto Diaz.
Those three, TT’s hundred-page complaint said, were “the masterminds of this scheme.”
On March 30, the Prime Minister rejoiced the court's ruling, on the morning of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day holiday, with a succinct Facebook post that read, “Great Day in the Morning,” typed in all-caps, with a TT flag emoji, perhaps to emphasise his adulation with the verdict.
[caption id="attachment_1008903" align="alignnone" width="668"] Former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi, TT's representative in Miami, celebrate with the State's legal team from the Miami law firm White and Cae at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse at 73 West Flager Street, Miami, on March 29. -[/caption]
Accompanying Dr Rowley’s post were the front pages of the three daily newspapers which reported on the ruling of the Miami jury the day before.
Hours after the Government’s Miami win, former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi, who was credited with salvaging the multi-million dollar civil assets forfeiture lawsuit for the Government, hailed it as a “victory for the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Al-Rawi was in Miami since the start of the civil trial on March 6. He resumed the position of the Government’s representative – which he previously held when he was the attorney general – when the Florida courts disqualified his successor Attorney General Reginald Armour, last year because Armour had once defended Kuei Tung before the local courts.
The Government began litigation in 2004 in the US to recoup US$37 million from those accused of corruption, among them Ferguson and Kuei Tung. Kuei Tung served as finance ministers in both PNM and UNC administrations.
When the case was filed, Miami attorney for TT, Edward H Davis J
