Ebanks found guilty in status grant scam

| 08/11/2016 | 48 Comments
Cayman News Service

Paul Ebanks

(CNS): Paul Hume Ebanks (50) from Bodden Town was remanded in custody Tuesday after a jury took less than three hours to unanimously find him guilty of 27 charges of obtaining property by deception and theft in a status grant con. He was convicted of taking more than $167,000 from at least two dozen people after he duped foreign nationals into believing they were buying the right to live in Cayman or become Caymanians. Ebanks had claimed that he was scammed as well as his victims, as he accused the former Cayman Islands premier McKeeva Bush of orchestrating a scheme similar to the infamous mass status grant of 2003.

Following the jury’s verdict, the judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Thursday before he remanded Ebanks, who is facing a lengthy jail term, to HMP Northward.

Having pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, Ebanks had claimed that he was working on behalf of McKeeva Bush, who is the current opposition leader, and numerous other UDP officials in a genuine Cabinet status grant scheme. His defence in the con was that he had been recruited by the UDP hierarchy to find 100 potential candidates that could, for a fee of around $1500, be granted permanent residency or status in order to boost the electoral roll ahead of the 2012 election.

The crown’s case against him was that the scheme was a complete con invented entirely by Ebanks, who has a long history of deception and orchestrating criminal scams and even has previous convictions for the same offence. Prosecutors said that Ebanks evoked the names of Bush, other members of the UDP and Deputy Governor Franz Manderson as a way of making the con look legitimate so he could recruit unwitting individuals to help him find more victims and to convince them the scam was real.

But things unraveled for Ebanks when the people he had conned began to suspect it was a scam and started to demand their money back. After those he recruited to help him wrote to Bush and alerted other government officials, Ebanks was arrested, though he continued to try and con more victims even after his arrest.

Ebanks had been charged with 28 counts but the judge had directed that the jury should return a not guilty verdict on one count as there was no evidence before the court to support the details of that offence. But during the trial Ebanks had claimed that he had given more than $250,000 in collected fees to Bush, implying that he could have conned even more victims that have yet to come forward.

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Comments (48)

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  1. gidz says:

    Justin is a mother child in life you reap what you sow if you have children would like someone talking about your kids like that? Live him out a this only God can Judge not you.

  2. Yes Suh says:

    He is a sociopath who doesn’t belong in civilized society.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Deport his lyin a$$

    • My view says:

      Paul Ebanks is a sick sociopath and the poster child of an undesirable resident in any country except the country of his birth and that of his parents. A good and decent Caymanian man married his mother and adopted him hence his surname, Ebanks. He had a beautiful Caymanian wife who gave him two beautiful children but all he did was disgrace them and his dear mother who is really a decent lady. For years he has been telling stories of this rich father in Jamaica who had died and left him millions of dollars and asking for loans to go to Jamaica to sort out his affairs and would repay with high interest. He wrote bad checks for years until he ran out of banks. His stories were creative and because in many cases he used his children so people were sympathic and gave him money. I could go on an on because I am a personal friend of his ex-wife and tried to help him by confronting him and telling him to seek help just to be cursed out and have nasty slurs thrown at me by him and his current wife who by the way us an disgraced ex-immigration officer. Deport him yes and let him go live amongst his own kind where am sure he would be killed if he tried to con any of them. One thing I have learned about his kind, they will con you but you better try not con them.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    Paul Ebanks is a mentally deranged individual who should be arrested and deported from this islands as soon as possible.

  5. Papillion says:

    Paul Hume Ebanks Needs to be deported immediately stop wasting time Alden. You and your minions playing polictical games to try and damage the CDP

  6. Breaker 119 says:

    Look at Hilary top supporter going down Its time to stop talking foolishness about Human rights and send this joker ayard where he belongs!!! Deportation PPM stop holding this situation up in Cabinet because you believe he going to damage your political opponents credibility and reputation Shame shame shame on you Aldon and Panton

    • Anonymous says:

      If this government doesn’t change the law on deportation, VOTE them OUT in 2017. It was changed by that Hero to suit his gangsters in past years. How many have been deemed “Persono non grata”, in recent times? Only encouraging imported criminals in these once peaceful islands.

  7. Anonymous says:

    I just heard that President Elect Donald J. Trump will be making a short visit to the Cayman Islands this Christmas and will be advising the CI Government on how to deal with our backlog of PR applications. He will also be advising us on how to efficiently and effectively deport our local deplorable’s such as Paul Hume Ebanks.

    • Anonymous says:

      “Local deplorable criminals” he was brought here. Send him back to his place of birth. A youngman whose mother is a Caymanian, was deported because he was born in the US and his father was a irrigated national, so why can’t we deport these paranas.

  8. Dat wot u get says:

    This man is a criminal and a scam artist. I should know. I learned that lesson some years ago when he scammed me for $300. Mr. Ebanks came to my classroom one day (I was his son’s teacher at the time) and claimed that his son was in a Florida hospital as a result of an accident – he needed to get to him immediately, so could I please lend him some money… His son had been absent from school for a few days, so his story seemed plausible enough. Despite some initial reservations, I wanted to help him out. I told him that I could give him $300, not the $1000 he had asked for. Of course he promised that he would pay me back upon return, etc. Long story short, I never saw the money again.

    After calling him a few times and not getting a response, I realized that I got scammed. Well, here’s the thing, there is a thing called Karma, and he just got taste of it. I didn’t worry too much about the money that I lost because I felt quite confident that some day either someone was going to stab, shoot, or kill him, or that he would pull something dumb enough that would land him in jail. Seems that I was right, though it took a bit longer than expected. Enjoy your time in the cooler Mr. Ebanks. Best regards from Canada.

    • Cayguy says:

      He not the only one. Cayman is full of the same con artists that you speak of. Somewhere else they would be dealt with a lot different

    • anonymous says:

      10.33
      Your morals kind of twisted , especially taking into account you are a teacher…..stab, shoot, or kill him??? Be careful what you wish for. You might get it, instead if him.
      What this man has done is deplorable. But so are your wishes. I can’t believe you are a teacher.

      • Dat wot u get says:

        My morals are kind of twisted? Please worry about your own morals and I’ll worry about mine. Was there anything in my post that indicated that this is what I wished for? Go back to school and sign up for some reading remediation. What I said is that there is/was a strong possibility that his actions would lead to him getting stabbed, shot, or killed, not an unreasonable train of thought given the many people he has ripped off… Some people around here don’t take to being ripped off too kindly. So yeah, I wasn’t too worried about things. What would you have made me do – go to church, light up a candle for him and pray that he finds God and stops being a criminal? I was confident things would work themselves out; big difference between hoping that bad things would happen to him… So please stop defending criminals and worry about your own business.

      • Anonymous says:

        This man ripped of hundreds of people and the best you can think of is to attack one of his victims. Because of his actions, Ebanks deserves whatever comes his way. Think before you speak.

  9. Kay says:

    And for Aspinall? He just received a slap on the wrist for $500K. A very similar case. Let’s see what the judge hands out as sentence.

    • Jotnar says:

      Similar case? Actively deceived individuals for whom the money was a serious financial commitment versus helping yourself to money that the investors had previously written off. Pled innocent and tried to incriminate others instead of confessing and avoiding costs of a trial. Prior convictions for prior offences versus first time offender. Yeah similar case alright.

  10. Anonymous says:

    That’s right Paul take their money from them we done have enuff driftwood coming here by the ocean serve unnu right to trust a man with unnu money with hopes of getting pr I just wish he had took enuff to send unnu back where unnu came from with tails in between ur legs at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how much time they give him the longer the better free bills free food plus work without permit by time da jail time done he should be able to have saved enuff for retirement to kick back right there in BT

  11. Anonymous says:

    And he had a public defender all that money and to get free attorney DONTMAKENOCENTS @ ME

  12. Jotnar says:

    If Justin Manderson is still on the electoral role despite the twin obstacles of being dead and a criminal, I guess anything is possible in Cayman politics.

    • Anonymous says:

      He is still someone’s son, so please don’t be cruel.

    • A True Caymanian says:

      This is not about Justin Ok! It is about an imported person that is we let live here for so many years as a thief and that was proven time and time again. Justin was never proven to be guilty for anything if so go to the court and get his file. He never served time for anything only while on remand. But this person has served lots of years for the same thing before. You need to get your facts right before callicalling dead people name. He is not the problem here it is Paul Ebanks from Jamaica cause we have lots of Paul Ebanks that are Caymanians but this one is a Jamaican. So when he trying to bring down our good civil servants into his scam he need to leave here and take you with him cause maybe since you backing him so hard he was doing it for you.

      • Jotnar says:

        Just to be clear, when you say he was never convicted, are you saying saying was not a violent criminal? Poor chap, constantly harrassed by the police and ultimately shot by others who equally mistook him for a gangbanger, when he was a blameless citizen. My bad.

    • Anonymous says:

      You’ve long worn out the subject, idiot.

  13. Anonymous says:

    so many people want to live in our paradise Cayman that they will believe anything …. what is this saying about our non Caymanian residents??? are these the same posters on this site?

  14. Anonymous says:

    He is either the biggest con man or the biggest idiot.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Can we please deport him? (and before anyone claims he is Caymanian – he is not!)

  16. Anonymous says:

    Sad thing is that some of what he claimed is actually believable.

  17. Anonymous says:

    So is he no longer eligible to run for office in 2017?

    • Michel says:

      This man is a criminal and tried to bring good people down with him. I hope that he will be deported personna non grata after he is dealt with accordingly.

      • Mac and cheese says:

        Good people? Surely you jest.

        • Anonymous says:

          that’s what I thought mac & cheese!

          he was trying to help his own Jamaica-kind and seems lately they are so desperate to ‘beat the system’ the scams are either coming out of there for and against their own.

          Cayman needs a Trumpie to help clean up the mess and let people here know local, native, paper or work permit holder this crap needs to stop, OR go back home!

          • Marathon says:

            Cayman does not need a “Trumpie” now or ever. Don’t you understand anything about politics and politicians? Sit back and watch as the Donald fails to do anything for the US people but will advance his own situation greatly over the next four years. Remind you of anyone?

    • Anonymous says:

      He is not Caymanian and so has never been eligible to run!

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