McDonald Common-law Husband Still Can’t Secure His Bail

PORT-OF-SPAIN – CORRUPTION accused Michael Carew, the long-time companion of former public administration minister Marlene McDonald, is still to access the bail he was granted last week Monday.

Carew, 72, McDonald, 61, as well as Wayne Anthony, 66, Victor McEachrane, 65 and Edgar Zephyrine, 75, have been charged with corruption and money laundering offences and were granted bail by Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court, last Mon­day.

But Carew and Anthony remain in prison having been unsuccessful in securing their respective bail.

Legal sources said that Carew and An­tho­ny’s rel­a­tives at­tempt­ed to get ap­proval of the bail last Fri­day and yes­ter­day. They were denied since the Clerk of the Peace as­signed to the court was ab­sent from work.

Therefore, it means that Carew and Anthony have spent the past week at the remand yard at the Port-of-Spain State Prison on Frederick Street.

The five are fac­ing 49 charges over at­tempts to de­fraud the gov­ern­ment by al­leged­ly procur­ing funds for Carew’s Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, un­der the guise that it was a char­i­ty.

Mc­Don­ald, 61, is fac­ing sev­en charges – two for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud, four for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and one for mon­ey laun­der­ing. She on­ly se­cured her free­dom last Fri­day as she had been warded at the St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre after being formally charged last week Sunday.

Carew is facing eight charges – three con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and five mon­ey laun­der­ing. He was grant­ed $500,000 bail.

Zephyrine, 75, the for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion of Self Help, was slapped with 28 charges – one for con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and 27 mon­ey laun­der­ing. He was grant­ed $1 mil­lion bail.

McEachrane has three fraud charges and three mon­ey laun­der­ing charges. He is on $400,000 bail.

An­tho­ny was charged with one mon­ey laun­der­ing of­fence. He has to secure $100,000 bail.

McEachrane was the first to ac­cess his bail as it was ap­proved with­in hours of the group’s court ap­pear­ance. Two days lat­er, Zephyrine ac­cessed his.

Mc­Don­ald fell ill be­fore her ini­tial court ap­pear­ance and bail was grant­ed in her ab­sence.

The group is sched­uled to reap­pear be­fore Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle on Sep­tem­ber 9.