Lowenfield faces two more elections fraud charges
– Called into CID along with Myers
Jun 09, 2021 , Source - https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...tions-fraud-charges/
CEO of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield
Chief Elections Officer (CEO), of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Keith Lowenfield, will be facing two more elections fraud charges.
The information was relayed to this media house after Lowenfield was yesterday called into the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at Eve Leary, Kingston, along with Roxanne Myers, the Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO).
They both arrived at the CID headquarters sometime after 15:00 hrs. yesterday with their respective lawyers.
Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum, said that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) would be instituting two additional charges of conspiracy to defraud against Keith Lowenfield. He added that Clairmont Mingo, the Returning Officer (RO) for Region Four, was also called in and today the media will be updated on whether or not he and Meyers will face additional charges.
Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo.
Lowenfield, Myers and Mingo are currently facing multiple criminal charges related to alleged attempts to rig the March 2, General and Regional Election held in 2020.
Lowenfield was slapped with three counts of misconduct in public office and three counts of forgery, while Myers was slapped with two counts of misconduct in public office. Mingo also faces four charges alleging that he misconducted himself in public office by failing to disclose the number of votes that were counted during the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Apart from those charges, Mingo was jointly charged with former APNU+AFC Coalition Minister and current Chair of the People’s National Congress, Volda Lawrence, as well. The joint charge alleges that on March 5, 2020, in Georgetown, with intent to defraud the public, they uttered a certain forged document, that is to say, a report purporting to be a true declaration of all votes cast in District Four for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, knowing said report to be forged.
GECOM’s DCEO, Roxanne Myers.
He also faced another joint charge with Coalition activist, Carol Smith-Joseph, which alleges that on March 13, 2020, they uttered a forged document purporting to be a true report of all votes cast in the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, while knowing that the report was forged. The trio is currently out on bail.
It is unclear at the moment as to what led police to institute two more fraud charges against Lowenfield, and why they requested the presence of Myers and Mingo at CID as well.
Recently however, Kaieteur News had reported that the controversial Region Four Statements of Poll (SoPs) for the March 2, elections were handed over to investigators at CID.
The handing over of the documents followed an order by the Chief Justice (Ag), Roxane George-Wiltshire, for them to be turned over to police by the Supreme Court’s Registrar, Sueanna Lovell.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, and the Commissioner of Police (Ag), Nigel Hoppie, had filed an application in the High Court for the SoPs and the Statement of Recounts (SoRs) to be released to investigators.
They had requested the elections documents in order to facilitate a fair hearing for the charges against the key GECOM officials.