Maxwell IF GEOFFREY Maxwell, the former national football coach, doesn't come up within 30 days with much of the millions of dollars he pleaded guilty on December 8, to defrauding his former employers of, he could end up in prison.
Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle told him this yesterday when his case came up in the Corporate Area Criminal Court, Half-way Tree.
Maxwell, 51, had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud H.D. Hopwood & Co. Ltd., a pharmaceutical company of Carifta Avenue, Kingston 11, where he had worked as chief accountant.
Hopwood had complained to the police that some two years ago it gave Maxwell $22,291,500 to buy US dollars, but it got back neither the US dollars nor the Jamaican dollars from Maxwell.
"Come March 1, make sure that you have done your part because on that day, any excuse or any default on your part, even if you are absent, I shall sentence you," Mr. Gayle warned Maxwell yesterday.
Maxwell had been scheduled to make restitution in court yesterday before he was sentenced.
Attorney-at-law Gayle Nelson, representing Maxwell, told the court his client had made part-payment, but was unable to repay more because of some hitches.
Attorney-at-law Walter Scott, for H.D. Hopwood, did not object to the repayment schedule.
The prosecution's allegations were that between September 1997 and 1999, 12 cheques totalling $22,291,500 were drawn by the company and given to Maxwell to buy US$600,000. The US dollars were bought but were never handed over to H.D. Hopwood.
Fraud Squad detectives investigated and charged Maxwell.
