BY KARYL WALKER Crime/Court Desk Co-ordinator walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
THE trial of former junior minister Kern Spencer and his co-accused Coleen Wright hit a snag yesterday after defence lawyers and Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn haggled over what the attorneys said was information that was being withheld from them.
The verbal spat erupted during the testimony of Crown witness Rodney Chin, who said he used two Samsung cellular phones to record conversations between himself, Spencer and the mother of Spencer's child, Sherine Shakes, whom he said was responsible for the running of the Cuban light bulb project.
"We are being short-changed," said defence attorney KD Knight, who is representing Wright, as Llewellyn asked Chin what method he used to transfer the recordings.
Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey sided with the defence and ordered Llewellyn to present the lawyers with an additional statement this morning.
Llewellyn then asked for an adjournment to allow her time to prepare the statement.
Llewellyn also came under fire from Knight, who accused her of asking unfair questions.
"You will get your chance to in the witness box," Knight told Llewellyn.
"That sounds like a threat, but I am not intimidated," Llewellyn replied.
"It is a promise," Knight shot back.
Earlier, Chin told the Court that he began recording telephone conversations between himself and Spencer after he heard rumblings that the deal may have gone sour.
The recordings, which are due to be aired in court, were made between November 2007 and February 2008, Chin said.
"It was based on things that I started to hear from third parties," Chin said. "So at that point, I was out in the dark. So I said, record all conversations so that at a later date I could say to a person, here is the truth."
Spencer, Wright and Chin were arrested in February 2008 following a probe into the distribution of four million energy-saving light bulbs which were a gift from the Cuban Government in 2006.
They were charged with breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act, but the charges against Chin were later dropped after he became a prosecution witness.
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