Two years demanded
for Loor’s girlfriend
PHILIPSBURG--The girlfriend and partner in life of former police commissioner and chief of Immigration Marcel Loor may be facing two years in jail if it is up to Prosecutor Maarten Hemelaar. C.C. (35) will know her fate on May 6 when Judge Rob Goosens gives his decision in her case.
C.C., a former employee of the Coast Guard of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, is charged with fraud, forgery and money laundering, and stood trial in the Court of First Instance on Wednesday.
Loor was sentenced to four years in prison last November for having committed forgery, bribery, tax evasion and money laundering. The Court also ordered him to pay a fine of NAf. 600,000, and NAf. 191,254 in damages to the Coast Guard.
The Appeal Court slashed his sentence almost in half earlier this month, reducing it to 24 months, six of which were suspended, and a NAf. 10,000 fine. It is expected that Loor will be released from prison in two months.
C.C.’s trial followed the pattern of her partner’s. The Prosecutor considered all charges proven, while her lawyer Ralph Richardson went to great lengths in his efforts to prove his client’s innocence.
C.C. is accused of having defrauded the Coast Guard of NAf. 230,000 between January 2002 and June 2007, by claiming a rent allowance while in fact she was living in a house that was owned by Loor.
She is also charged with forging documents she used to claim disability pay from the Netherlands while in fact she was working 38 hours per week with the Coast Guard. This amount totalled to 115,000 euros.
Like her partner, C.C. was also charged with money laundering to a total of US $250,000 in cash deposits.
Prosecutor Hemelaar considered all charges proven and said C.C. should be sent to jail just like her partner in life and in crime.
He added that he totally disagreed with the Appeal Court, which had considerably lowered Loor’s punishment. “This is incredible and too low a sentence,” Hemelaar said. “I still consider a four-year punishment to be justified.”
He requested two years for C.C., adding that as the couple had two young children, he would make sure that Loor and C.C. would not be incarcerated at the same time.
Attorney Richardson took an hour an a half to meticulously explain to the court why his client should be acquitted of all charges. He said his client had acted in good faith, was entitled to the Coast Guard allowance, and had also acted according to the rules where the disability pay was concerned.
As to the money laundering charges, he said it could not be proven that the deposited amounts of money had been obtained through criminal activities.
In a separate plea he stated that the Prosecutor’s entire case against his client should be declared inadmissible because in his eyes the principles of a fair trial had been violated.
