Varied punishments in Emerald case
On April the 17th 2018 the Court of First Instance of Sint Maarten sentenced five residents for deliberately not on time, inaccurate and / or incomplete filing of the income tax and the tax on the company turnover.
Emerald research
The persons that are sentenced today are five of the seven persons summoned for the first series of meetings in the Emerald investigation, which is about the turnover and profit achieved with businesses that are sole proprietorship. On February 22th 2018 the Court of First Instance already ruled on the cases of the two other suspects. One was sentenced to a community service of 120 hours and a conditional prison sentence of 6 months and the other to a community service of 240 hours and a conditional prison sentence of 12 months.
Starting point for the penalty
The Court of First Instance maintains the principle used in the previous rulings that an unconditional prison sentence, as required in all cases by the public prosecution service, only qualifies in exceptional cases. The Court understands the demand in part (there has been tax evasion on a large scale and that weighs heavy on the interests of the community, especially now that it tries to overcome the devastating effects of Irma), but deviates from this due to the strict requirements for imposition of an unconditional prison sentence. In this context, it is important that the Caribbean has rarely seen a suspect that has been brought before the criminal court for tax fraud. The fact that the tradition of non-prosecution has now been broken, may mean that an unconditional prison sentence will be a starting point in the future. However, at the time of tax evasion in these cases the tradition still existed.
No unconditional prison sentence for four suspects
According to the Court of First Instance there is no question of an exceptional case in four of the five cases. Almost all the suspects have a blank criminal record and it is plausible that they have only kept a fraction of the money for themselves. They are sentenced for community service sentences ranging from 180 hours to 240 hours, in combination with conditional prison sentences ranging from 6 to 12 months.
Unconditional custodial sentence for parliamentarian
In the case of the member of parliament, the Court finds otherwise. The Court considers it incomprehensible and unacceptable that he did not take accountability of the tax fraud. On the one hand, he enjoys a generous income as a member of parliament. On the other hand, at the public hearing, he refused to explain to the community how he has incurred the considerable tax fraud that has disadvantaged the same community. Despite earlier promises to be open about the case, this parliamentarian consistently relied on his right to remain silent. He gave, in contradistinction to the others, no insight into his actions, let alone that he had expressed his regret. There are also strong indications that he is more to blame than the other suspects. Therefore we are speaking about an exceptional case. After considering everything, the Court of First Instance came to the conclusion that a prison sentence of 18 months, of which 15 months was conditional, and the maximum work penalty of 240 hours had to be imposed.