Freeland, auction money: Police yet to confirm robbery report

Wendell Robinson, commissioner of police, said yesterday that he could not recall off-hand any report having been filed by Senator Michael Freeland stating that he had been robbed of over $100,000 in auction proceeds.
“I will have to check to see if any such report was made. After all, it is not every single report which is made to the police that I would know of,” Robinson said.
Senator Lennox Weston, in defence of his fellow government senator explained to the floor of the senate last week that $160,000 in auction proceeds was stolen from Freeland’s car and Freeland reported the matter to the police.
Senator Freeland has not made any public statement about the controversy surrounding the auction proceeds which were due, but not immediately paid to the Customs and Excise Division.
A senator reporting the robbery of $160,000 in money due to the government would likely have been the subject of a major police investigation.
However, even as the police are yet to confirm the aspect of Weston’s account dealing with the police report, Rajoo Boddu, comptroller of customs, has said that the figure of $160,000 is simply false and the actual sum, not immediately turned over was $119,866.50.
One aspect of Weston’s account, which has been confirmed by Boddu, is that Freeland has been repaying the sum in instalments over time since the point when the senator and auctioneer first failed to produce the total sum in auction proceeds that was due.
Coincidentally, the comptroller of customs, who was speaking to OBSERVER media yesterday, said that yesterday, December 5, 2017 was the due date of the final instalment from Freeland. However, Boddu who had declined to comment on the controversy in November, still declined to say how many instalments had been paid, in what amounts and since what time.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)