PRESIDENT of the Senate Syringa Marshall-Burnett is expected to appear in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court today to give character evidence for convicted former bank manager, Melanie Tapper, who was found guilty of fraud last week.

Tapper and accomplice, former bank manager, Winston McKenzie, were jointly convicted for the 1995 offences of collecting money by false pretenses, and conspiracy to defraud over $4 million from businessman, Bently Rose, and his two companies, Benros Ltd and Macro Finance Corporation.

Resident Magistrate Jennifer Straw, adjourned the matter last week to hear character evidence for the two before handing down sentence.

Mckenzie was arrested and charged with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy, and jointly with Tapper on three counts. McKenzie and his wife, Elaine, were also charged with two counts of fraud. However, Elaine was found not guilty.

Tapper’s attorney, Lloyd McFarlane, told the court that Marshall-Burnett should have testified on Thursday but was unavoidably absent as the Senate was meeting.

Four character witnesses — Lascells Lewis, retired civil servant and industrial relations consultant; Henry Hall and Lucille Abott, retired bankers and Glen Broomfield, a businessman who gave character evidence — testified that the convicted persons possessed impeccable character and their honesty and integrity were beyond reproach. They expressed “utter shock and disbelief” at Tapper and McKenzie’s arrest, explaining that their arrests have not negatively affected their support for them.

Meanwhile, McFarlane objected to an order by the court to have the offenders’ fingerprints taken. Basing his objections on the grounds that his clients’ prints were taken on an order of the court in 1995, McFarlane said the police had reported that the prints were mislaid. However, the magistrate overruled the objection and made a new order to have them fingerprinted.

Meanwhile, McKenzie’s attorney, Walter Scott, told the court that his client was willing to repay the amount of $1.7 million defrauded in indictments one to eight. “My client has put together, from his limited resources and along with friends, $1.730 million including US$10,000,” Scott said. Mckenzie, he added, has been prevented through a moravian court injunction to touch his assets of $54 million, “because all his savings was used to support the Benros indebtedness.”

In a passionate plea to the court to impose a lenient non-custodial sentence, Scott asked the resident magistrate to consider imposing a three-year non-custodial sentence along with a Community Service Order of 480 hours. “I submit your honour (that) to send him (McKenzie) to prison will be an unmitigated disaster, because it is not a violent offence and he is no threat to the peace, stability and good order of the country, so, a community sentence is what I am asking you to consider.”