Sex abuse accuser threatens legal action on Newsday

He had come into the Chacon Street offices of the newspaper saying he wanted to tell his story since other media were misrepresenting him.

He also said he was inspired by the woman who went public recently with complaints over sexual acts against her by a Minister to whom she had gone seeking assistance for a house.

But midway into the interview yesterday after receiving a telephone call he claimed was from his attorney, the young man promptly ceased providing any further information and threatened legal action if the newspaper carried any of the details he had divulged. He also insisted that all recorded material be erased, and also wanted to take possession of the reporter’s notes. He stormed out of the premises when Newsday refused to comply with his demands.

Checks by the newspaper with the police later revealed the young man who had volunteered his name and an address in central Trinidad, had in fact reported to them last Thursday that sexual advances were made to him on two separate occasions by a senior government official. Newsday was told, however, that to this point, the young man had not given the police a formal statement. Fraud Squad also revealed they are pursuing reports of fraud made by three persons against the same young man.

He had told Newsday during the interview that his matters before the court related to vehicles, but he refused to give further details.

However, Newsday received information yesterday from a woman, Charlene Lewis, claiming the man bearing the same name as given to our reporter was the subject of a report she made to the police involving $3,000.

Lewis told Newsday that in 2012 her husband was at Kalloo’s Auto Rentals where he worked when the man rented a vehicle and he and her husband soon started talking.

She said the man claimed to be a lawyer and gave an office address on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. Lewis said she and her husband had a legal matter to take care of and decided to approach the man to assist them.

Lewis revealed towards the end of 2012 she and her husband went to the address on Abercromby Street where the man claimed he had his law practice. When they went there they met him, well dressed and he took them into an office where they discussed the legal matter.

She said they paid the man $3,000 to initiate legal work but when they tried contacting him again, he started making excuses and then he changed his numbers.

She said they decided to return to the same office where they had met the man but when they went there all they saw there were Christmas decorations and the office appeared to be vacant.

Lewis said she and her husband then checked with the Law Association to ascertain if the man was in fact a lawyer so a report could be made against him, but they then discovered he was not a lawyer.

“It was there and then that we reported the matter to the Fraud Squad but I did not want to leave it there and started searching Facebook to see if he was on the social networking site. I did find him advertising a gospel concert at Rienzi Complex.”

Lewis pointed out that when she called his new numbers, he claimed not to know her or her husband and proceeded to hang up the phone.

She later learnt he also ran a non-governmental organisation and that several other persons including one of her friends had issues with the man.

She noted she did not follow up with the matter, but when she learnt he had appeared on a television newscast on Tuesday claiming sexual advances were made to him by a government minister, alarm bells immediately rang out and she realised it was the same person she had made a report to the police about regarding the $3,000. She is now calling on the Fraud Squad to properly investigate her complaint and bring this perpetrator to justice.