Accused: It wasn’t me

Former acting post-mistress Gloria Ramnarine never returned to the Rio Claro Post Office after she discovered thousands of dollars missing from the safe. Minutes after Ramnarine found the money missing, she walked out of the southern post office telling her supervisors, who arrived to check the accounts books, she was going to get a cup of coffee. She never returned.

“I was not thinking straight. I had had a bad night,” Ramnarine told a jury yesterday as she continued giving evidence at her trial in the San Fernando Second Criminal Assizes. Ramnarine, 51, is on trial before Justice Malcolm Holdip for stealing $145,703.50 from the safes of the Rio Claro Post Office. Under cross-examination by State prosecutor Narissa Ramsundar, she insisted she was innocent.  “I did not steal the money,” the former post-mistress insisted.

Last Friday, Ramnarine admitted she told then South Regional Postal Comptroller, Fyzal Hosein,  she was trying to raise the cash to replace the missing money, because she felt “morally responsible.” Ramnarine said she did not know how much was missing, describing the amount as “plenty.” Asked by the prosecutor how she attempted to replace the cash if she did not know how much was missing, the accused said there were previously wads of $100 and $20 bills in the drawers, but on February 3, 1997, all she found were $1 bills. Ramnarine is defended by attorneys Ian Stuart Brook and Nizam Mohammed. The case continues today.