Seizure of Tobago woodworker's $85k under judicial scrutiny

A magistrate’s decision to order the detention of over $85,000 seized by police from a Tobago woodworker is now under judicial scrutiny.

On November 22, Justice Carol Gobin permitted Marshell London, of Store Bay Local Road, permission to challenge Magistrate Indira Misir-Gosine’s rulings in October.

The matter is scheduled for a virtual hearing on January 7, 2025.

London wants the court to declare the magistrate’s decision to authorise the further detention of $85,027 until January 16, 2025, is unlawful. He also wants the decision quashed.

London’s application said his claim would review the magistrate’s process to grant a further detention order to the police. London maintains the cash is from his woodworking business.

His application referred to the evidence of PC Dick in the cash detention proceedings. The lawsuit contends the police allegedly confiscated some $70,000 cash found in possession of two men seated in a car parked on the side of the road at Mt Pleasant in October 2023.

In evidence before the magistrate, the police alleged the money was being used for drug trafficking since there was a known drug block in the Mt Pleasant area.

The police sought three detention orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act which were granted. London provided the police’s evidence at the magistrate’s court including his attorney Keron Ramkhalwan’s cross-examination of PC Dick on the existence of the alleged drug block.

London’s lawsuit contends that the POCA mandates that a judicial officer has to be satisfied there were reasonable grounds to believe the cash was directly or indirectly the proceeds of a criminal act or is intended for use in the commission of an offence.

“The intended applicant/applicant submits that the intended respondent/respondent has erroneously conflated the legal tests of ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ and ‘reasonable grounds for suspicion' in her analysis and decision-making process.

“There was insufficient evidence before the intended respondent/respondent to make a finding there were reasonable grounds to believe that the cash seized directly or indirectly represents any person’s proceeds of a specified offence or is intended by any person for use in the commission of such an offence.”

London’s application also said from PC Dick’s evidence, there was none to satisfy the magistrate to grant the further detention order.

It also complained that the magistrate failed to consider the evidence elicited in cross-examination and was influenced “by matters that should not have been considered when she considered that citizens may not have in possession large sums of monies because of the digital era as this was an immaterial consideration in an application made under Section 38 of POCA.”