Loor’s girlfriend to
follow him in prison
~ Craig sentenced for fraud, forgery and money laundering ~
PHILIPSBURG--Charlene Craig listened stoically while the judge read the verdict in her case in the Courthouse on Tuesday morning. The 35-year-old girlfriend of former chief of Immigration police commissioner Marcel Loor was sentenced to twenty months, five of which were suspended, for fraud, forgery and money laundering.
During the April 16 Court hearing Prosecutor Maarten Hemelaar had requested two years’ incarceration.
Craig, a former employee of the Coast Guard of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, was not immediately incarcerated. The judge had already indicated during last month’s hearing that Craig and Loor would not be detained at the same time, so that one of them would be able to take care of the couple’s two minor children. It is expected that Loor will be released some time next month.
Loor was sentenced to four years in prison last November for having committed forgery, bribery, tax evasion and money laundering. The Court also ordered him to pay a fine of NAf. 600,000 and NAf. 191,254 in damages to the Coast Guard.
The Appeal Court slashed his sentence almost in half in April, reducing it to 24 months, six of which were suspended, and a NAf. 10,000 fine.
Judge Rob Goossens stated in his written verdict, which was read by his colleague Willem Jan Noordhuizen on Tuesday, that he found Craig guilty of defrauding the Coast Guard out of more than NAf. 190,000 in rent subsidy.
She was also found guilty of forgery in submitting false information concerning her income to UWV, the implementing body for employee insurance schemes in the Netherlands, from which Craig received disability payment to which she was not entitled.
The Court also considered it proven that together with her partner in crime Craig had laundered money, which in part had come from the said fraudulent activities and in part from still unknown sources. The money was sent to an offshore company in Nevis owned by Loor.
The judge rejected attorney Ralph Richardson’s plea that his client’s trial had been unfair because her phone had been tapped, she had been pressured and intimidated by detectives during the investigation, and she had been hampered in her free choice of a lawyer.
According to the Court, Craig and Loor had created a legal construction by which it seemed as though Craig was renting property that in fact was owned by Loor.
The Court threw out the defence’s statement that Craig had informed UWV extensively about her income situation.
