PHILIPSBURG–The “Emerald” case involving fraud at Port St. Maarten is finally over for the port’s former chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Mingo as the Court of Appeals declared the Prosecutor’s Office’s dispossession claim against him inadmissible on Monday morning.

During a brief hearing in the courthouse of St. Maarten, the solicitor general stated that the Prosecutor’s Office had no other choice than to repeal the dispossession claim of US $8,315,278, after the Appellate Court had fully acquitted Mingo of the charges brought against him in the Emerald case.

In January 2020, the Court of First Instance sentenced Mingo (51) to 46 months in prison for forgery of documents and defrauding Port St. Maarten of around US $10 million. He was also forbidden to work as a port director or at any government-owned company for a period of six years.

On June 21, 2022, the former CEO of St. Maarten Harbour Group of Companies was acquitted on appeal of falsifying invoices and fraud at the port.

The Prosecutor’s Office had summoned him on May 18, 2018, to appear in court on June 11, 2018, for “deliberately falsifying about 300 invoices” and “by one or more cunning tricks” in association with others, defrauding Port St. Maarten of multiple sums of money “up to a total amount of about US $8 million.”

On Monday, the Court of Appeals informed Mingo that it had reached the same conclusion as his lawyer Cor Merx and the Prosecutor’s Office, and declared the prosecutor inadmissible in his claim against Mingo because he has been acquitted of committing criminal offences.

Bron: Daily Herald