CITY Magistrate Leron Daly on Wednesday recused herself from the case against former Board Director of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), Carvil Duncan involving the $28M scam he allegedly committed.The Magistrate made this pronouncement when the matter was called before her for trial; however she recused herself, explaining that she had previously dealt with Duncan’s other matter which she dismissed last November.

Daly transferred the matter back to Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan for reassignment. Duncan is before the court in relation to a charge where he is accused of conspiring with another to steal $27,757,547, belonging to GPL between May 7 and 8, 2015.

It was reported that Duncan and a former senior GPL official Aeshwar Deonarine were part of a multimillion-dollar fraud at the power company. The men are alleged to have illegally transferred close to $28M to their personal bank accounts from GPL.

The Government had asked the police to investigate Duncan and Deonarine last July. It was reported that the men paid themselves without authorization.

The discovery of the suspicious transfers was made by independent auditors who were probing an account which hold proceeds of oil shipments taken from Venezuela. It was while tracking payments to GPL that auditors unearthed the strange transactions.

Police issued an arrest warrant for Deonarine after he fled the country.

November last, Duncan was acquitted by Magistrate Daly for stealing $984,900 belonging to GPL on March 31, 2015 after it was ruled that a prima facie case had not been established against him for the offence.

The magistrate upheld a no-case-submission made by Duncan’s attorney Glen Hanoman. During his ruling the magistrate dismissed the charge on the ground that the prosecution’s witnesses failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove the elements of the offence.