Watson battles to explain emails and documents
Cayman Islands Hospital, George Town
(CNS): The former chair of the Health Services Authority continued to try and explain more apparently incriminating emails on Friday during another tough day of cross-examination about his alleged involvement with AIS Cayman Ltd. Explaining documents that appeared to show how he and his close friend, Jeffrey Webb, were going to benefit from the lucrative hospital contract and other associated deals, Conover Watson once again claimed the spreadsheets were mere projections. He also battled to explain how his former PA could have sent a doctored contract to HSA officials ahead of planned national rollout of the CarePay system.
In the final day of cross-examination by Patrick Moran, the deputy director of public prosecutions, Watson faced more incriminating paperwork that implied he and Webb were beneficial owners in the company that won the hospital contract for a payment and verification system when he was chair of the HSA board and the man running the project.
Watson, who blamed his former personal assistant, Miriam Rodrigues, for circulating an incorrect contract to hospital officials, tried to explain how she could have made such a mistake when she would have had to convert the document and merge it with a signed copy, making it hard to see how she could have done so in error.
Despite pressure from Moran and a paper trail and emails that appeared difficult to explain, Watson continued to deny he had manipulated the system in any way. He also continued to deny that he was an owner of AIS or benefitted financially from the contract that he battled to keep on track since the Jamaican company first came to Cayman to present the system as a solution to the hospital’s bad debt problem in August 2010. Watson has admitted that at this time he found out that Webb, his partner in numerous other business, was going to be the Cayman partner in the venture.
Watson denied lying to the Jamaican owner of AIS, Doug Halsall, about what AIS Cayman Ltd was up to and described email evidence as misunderstandings or mistakes and denied allegations by Moran that he was set to “make a small fortune” from the contract if the system had been rolled out to include all of the private sector insurers and health care providers.
As the crown prosecutor concluded his cross-examination, he asked Watson to tell the jury the truth because his version of events as to where money did or did not go did not represent the whole truth and nothing but the truth and, Moran said, throughout the case Watson had sought to mislead the jury.
The case continues.
