Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Kingston attorney-at-law Vincent Chen was successful on Friday in having his fraud convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.

"Finally, there has been vindication. I was really shaken by the initial decision because I know I was not guilty of any wrongdoing," he said on Friday.

Chen, a former senior partner in the law firm Clinton Hart and Company, was convicted in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court in April 2005 of conspiracy to defraud and causing money to be paid by false pretences. Senior Resident Magistrate Jennifer Straw (now a Supreme Court Judge) had fined him a total of $2.2 million.

The conspiracy to defraud charge involved $10 million which former banker Ronald Sasso had invested in Caribbean Trust Finance and Investment, a provident society, of which Chen was a shareholder.

Transactions

The false pretence charges stemmed from two transactions in 1997, in which $10.5 million and US$50,000 ($3.5 million) were invested from a trust fund into JHG Mapp Successors Ltd, a distribution company, of which Chen was the chairman.

The trust fund was set up in The Cayman Islands by the late husband of Justice of the Peace and ex civil servant, Fay Tortello. Tortello subsequently made arrangements for the monies to be invested in Mapp.

In quashing Chen's convictions and setting aside the fine, the Court of Appeal comprising Justice Seymour Panton, Justice Karl Harrison and Justice Hazel Harris referred to evidence at the trial that Tortello's public statements about Mapp triggered a number of demands on Mapp.

"This case is one in which the complainant (Tortello) obtained a guarantee in respect of that invest-ment, received her interest payments, and then created an uproar which propelled the collapse of the company," the court held.

Chen was also convicted of conspiracy to defraud former banker Ronald Sasso of $10 million in treasury bills by giving an undertaking that Caribbean Trust would secure his investment.

The Court of Appeal found that Chen should not have been convicted of that charge because it was the financial controller of Caribbean Trust who was in direct contact with Sasso in relation to his investment. The court said there was no evidence that the financial controller was acting on Chen's instruction.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com.