Crown wraps up CarePay case with more evidence
Cayman Islands courthouse
(CNS): Jurors were given more documents on Monday as the crown wrapped up the hospital CarePay corruption case against Canover Watson and Miriam Rodrigues. While the six women and one man have heard from many live witnesses, a very significant portion of the crown’s case is based on electronic data and documents, particularly email communications, banking transactions and company registration papers.
The crown claims that when Watson was the chair of the Health Service Authority he ensured that the hospital adopted a verification and payment system and secured that contract for AIS (Cayman) Ltd, of which he and disgraced former football boss, Jeffrey Webb, were the beneficial owners.
The crown claims that Watson manipulated the contract to increase the rate charged by AIS to the hospital for transaction fees and to increase the start-up cost payment. Prosecutors further allege that Watson manipulated the health minister at the time, Mark Scotland, who has not testified in the case, into releasing a payment of $1.2M to AIS for a national roll-out after doctoring the contract. In addition, Watson is accused of manipulating the tendering process for a pharmacy information system contract that also went to AIS.
Reams of information recovered from Watson’s home and office computers are being put before the jury to support the crown’s contention, which Watson has denied. He claimed in a police interview that his in-depth involvement with AIS (Cayman) Ltd, which he said employed his friend Webb as a consultant, was to ensure the project worked and stayed on track as the system was expected to address the hospital’s massive debt problem resulting from a huge amount of outstanding payments.
Rodrigues, who worked as Watson’s personal assistant, is charged with money laundering as a result of what the crown says was her knowledge of the corruption, having done the paperwork to create AIS Cayman Ltd, and her administrative role, which included collecting and paying cheques into the AIS account from the HSA and on two occasions holding cash in a locked draw for Webb. She has denied knowing the details of the alleged fraud.
However, the crown has not alleged that Rodrigues gained financially in any way from the contract.
Trevor Burke QC, who is representing Watson, is scheduled to open the defence for his client Tuesday afternoon before the former HSA chair takes the stand.
The case continues.
