A St Elizabeth businessman who operated an overseas employment agency and was arrested in 2014 and charged with multiple fraud-related offences is suing the State for hundreds of millions of dollars after he was freed of the charges.

The businessman was accused of operating a scam, and was arrested and placed before the courts on multiple criminal charges, an ordeal which he said caused him “egregious embarrassment” and the ultimate collapse of his business.

In a claim filed in the Supreme Court on June 30 which has since been served on the defendant, the Office of the Attorney General, businessman Everett Jackson, who was the chief executive officer and owner of Caribbean Recruiting, a registered company licensed as an overseas employment entity and which had helped hundreds secure jobs, said his agency was “well-established with a good track record”.

The claimant, who spent a year and a half behind bars after his arrest in 2014, and who said he was “rearrested approximately 10-12 or more times” due to new fraud charges being laid against him each time he appeared in court, is seeking special damages in the hundreds of millions (figure redacted on request) plus damages for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and damages for loss of earnings.

He is also seeking aggravated damages for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, exemplary damages for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, as well as vindicatory damages plus interest, his attorney’s fees, and court costs.

The charges which included 10 counts of conspiracy to defraud, and 89 counts of fraudulent conversion and obtaining money by false pretence, stemmed from a 2014 incident involving a female client who had been refunded via a cheque.

According to the particulars of claim document, the client, after being refunded via cheque, requested to be paid back in cash instead because she did not have the national identification requested of her by the businessman’s bank to encash the cheque.

According to the businessman, he met the client at the bank to facilitate the encashment of the cheque, but upon withdrawing the sums from his account to hand to her she revealed she did not have the cheque to facilitate the exchange.

He said the female client, who had been accompanied by two other female clients, insisted that they all would not hand over their cheques, and so he withheld the cash. In the fracas that ensued, the police were called and he and the three women were taken to Half-Way-Tree Police Station in St Andrew.

The businessman said while he was in the process of giving his statement, an inspector of police entered the office and, without interviewing or questioning him, ordered that he be arrested, stating that the company was “a scam”. The women were then reportedly told by the police to call everyone they knew who were clients of the company to come to the station as quickly as possible with their receipts so criminal charges could be filed. He was subsequently charged for 10 counts of conspiracy to defraud, and 89 counts of fraudulent conversion and obtaining money by false pretence.

The entrepreneur, who said he was held in “deplorable conditions” at Half-Way-Tree Police Station lock-up for a year and a half, said he “suffered emotional distress, disgrace, indignity, and utmost humiliation outside and inside court” arising from the plethora of charges and the announcement by a Parish Court judge that he should repay/refund all his clients.

He further charged that “the prosecution relied on very frivolous and tenuous evidence and maliciously prosecuted him because there was no credible evidence” that his agency was a scam.

In further defence of his suit, the 63-year-old man pointed out that several of the criminal charges were dropped by the Crown before the matter proceeded to trial “because there was no credible evidence that Caribbean Recruiting was a sham entity or that he committed any of the said criminal offences”.

In July 2019 the businessman was found not guilty on all counts. In 2022 all charges were dismissed.

According to the businessman, the actions of the cop caused him “mental anguish, embarrassment, indignation, a feeling of disgrace” and resulted in him being “ostracised by his business partners”.

He said the situation also resulted in his agency’s licence not being renewed based on the court’s conditions for bail which restricted him from communicating with any of his clients and not engaging in employment recruitment of any kind, leading to his business folding.

He said, had the inspector who ordered his arrest taken the time to investigate, it would have become apparent that his company had followed the contractual arrangement for refund requests. Furthermore, he said the other two women had not made any request for refunds and therefore were not entitled to demand any cash refund from him that day at the bank.

He said the cop “deliberately incited, encouraged, goaded, urged, and spurred on” the women to call some 50 others to lodge complaints against him and acted in “a high-handed manner” by taking him into custody.

The shamed businessman is, in the meantime, contending that he was inconvenienced by having to attend court from December 24, 2014 to January 18, 2022 (approximately eight years) in addition to having to report to the police daily for several years and from having a curfew order and stop order imposed on him leading to the ultimate collapse of his company and bankruptcy.

Jackson is being represented by attorney Anthony Williams of the law firm Usim, Williams and Company.