Suspended senior police officer Ray John and his co-accused, Shakema Charles, are now slated to face trial on January 17, 2024, after a five-year wait.
They are charged with participating in an alleged passport scam involving the unauthorised use of Multi Layered Infilling Sheets (MLIS) owned by the local passport office, and forging passports between October 28, 2014, and April 6, 2018.
John and his co-accused have maintained that they did not commit the passport scam that they are accused of.
John and Charles — who was an employee of the Antigua and Barbuda Passport Office, are believed to have conspired with unknown individuals to forge Antigua and Barbuda passports.
The Vincentian-born policeman was also charged with two counts of larceny, being accused of stealing 16 of the sheets valued at $1,600 and also receiving them knowing them to be stolen.
Initially, John’s mother, Yvonne Nickie, was also charged, but the prosecution dropped the charges against her a few months ago.
The passport scam came to light in April 2018 when St Vincent and the Grenadines police intercepted an individual at the airport carrying five bio pages of Antigua and Barbuda passports, along with a substantial amount of cash.
When the case was committed in 2019, around 30 exhibits were tendered into evidence for the High Court trial. They included passport patches, copies of foreign passports, cellphones, and cellphone excerpts.
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