Michael Carew

Mar­lene McDonald’s com­pan­ion Michael Carew and an­oth­er man charged along­side the cou­ple for cor­rup­tion and mon­ey laun­der­ing, are yet to ac­cess bail.

Ms. McDonald, Mr. Carew, Vic­tor Mc Eachrane, Edgar Zephyrine and Wayne An­tho­ny were all grant­ed bail when they ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court, one week ago.

Ms. McDonald, Mr. Zephyrine and Mr. Mc Eachrane were able to access their bail at the end of last week.

Reports are now saying Mr. Carew and Mr. An­tho­ny’s rel­a­tives attempted to get ap­proval of the bail, last Friday and yes­ter­day, but were turned away as the Clerk of the Peace as­signed to the court was ab­sent from work.

They are ex­pect­ed to try again, to­day.

The two el­der­ly men, who spent the past week in re­mand at the Port-of-Spain State Prison, were not the on­ly ones af­fect­ed by the sit­u­a­tion as every­one who was grant­ed bail at the court dur­ing the pe­ri­od was in a sim­i­lar po­si­tion.

The group is fac­ing 49 charges over at­tempts to de­fraud the gov­ern­ment by al­leged­ly procur­ing funds Carew’s Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, un­der the guise that it was a char­i­ty.

61-year-old former Minister McDonald is fac­ing 7 charges: 2 for conspir­a­cy to de­fraud, 4 for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and 1 for mon­ey laun­der­ing.

She was grant­ed $2 mil­lion bail and was on­ly se­cured her free­dom last Friday from the St. Clair Med­ical Cen­tre where she was ward­ed af­ter being charged last Sunday.