Softcom boss remanded into custody
WESTERN BUREAU — Horace Haughton, who is facing 35 counts of obtaining money by false pretence following the collapse of his Montego Bay-based firm, Softcom Limited, was yesterday remanded in police custody, at least until Thursday, when he should have secured legal representation.
Haughton is also facing a charge of simple larceny after he allegedly stole a television set and a bed spread from the Cariblue Hotel in Montego Bay. The two items are valued at $17,500.
On May 5 he reportedly booked into the hotel where he paid for five nights, using a cheque valued at $12,500. He later asked that a television set be brought to his room and hotel personnel complied by adding a 20-inch Sharp television.
When they returned to the room the following day, however, Haughton along with the television and the bed spread were missing.
More than 300 Softcom employees attracted the police’s attention to Haughton’s alleged financial impropriety when they staged a mass demonstration outside the company’s Church Street office on May 6, demanding to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars they said was owed to them by Haughton.
Workers were reportedly hired with promises of as much as $60,000 per month after statutory deductions while others were told they could earn up to $7,000 weekly. But before they were guaranteed employment they had to pay the company over $3,500 towards the purchase of uniforms, which they never received.
Their jobs included data entry computer graphics, telemarketing and the sale of insurance to the public; but the bank dishonoured the cheques Haughton used to pay them.
Haughton also reportedly obtained computers and other office supplies on credit from various business places and paid with cheques that were also dishonoured by the bank.
On the day of the demonstration, however, he was nowhere to be found, but was on Thursday, May 8 apprehended in Kingston by the police.