It’s been almost 2 months now since Melonie Coye and the late Michael Coye were found not guilty in the Court of Appeal, which overturned their conviction in the Supreme Court for money Laundering. Still, they haven’t been able to access any of the millions of dollars being withheld by the state.
Well, they’re making a move to get the Supreme Court to unfreeze their family bank accounts. These were accounts which were not a part of the original money laundering case, but which the Financial Intelligence Unit wanted to keep locked up tight while they investigated and prosecuted the family for money laundering.
Since they’ve won their appeal, they believe that the court should no longer entertain suspicions that the frozen accounts held proceeds of a crime. And so, today, their Attorney, Arthur Saldivar, made an application before Justice Shona Griffith.
That application was heard in chambers, and because the FIU attorney, Tricia Pitts-Anderson, was not ready to proceed, the court granted an adjournment until next Monday.
After the very brief hearing, 7News spoke with Saldivar outside of court about his strategy to get the Coyes their money back:
Arthur Saldivar - Attorney for Coye Family
"This family is a Belizean family that has been deprived of everything that they have earned over the forty-fifty plus years of the working life of Mr Michael Coye for now five years. They are being made to scrounge for survival in a very harsh economic environment where they cannot get employment anywhere. Mrs. Coye herself is too old to work; Melonie, by virtue of the ordeal that she was put through is not in a position to go out into the labour market to seek employment anywhere. But the government has been very callous and very vindictive in carrying through its position of squeezing every iota of time out of this process. It speaks badly of a government that wants to profess that it is one that is promoting social justice. What is being sought is to discharge a freezing order. The freezing order was imposed by the court, and it can be only be discharged by the court. That's all we're seeking, that the freezing order, as it relates to specific accounts, be removed so that the funds in those accounts can be accessed for the benefit of the family, so that they can actually pay their bills."
As we had reported, the new FIU Director Eric Eusey was considering the possibility of appealing the case. Well, according to Saldivar, no appeal has been filed, and leave hasn’t been granted in the required 42 days in order for the final appeal to take place at the Caribbean Court of Justice. He told the media since this procedure wasn’t done, the Court of Appeal’s ruling remains the final decision, which has since become fully enforceable. Subsequently, the state has to respect all the orders made by the court, including handing over the 1.557 million dollars the authorities confiscated from the Coye family home on New Year’s Eve 2008. By our count, the government only has 3 more days to comply with that order.
The income Tax department has also been informed that the Coye Family lawyers that they will challenge the claim that they owe 3.2126 million dollars in unpaid taxes.
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