PRINCIPAL Magistrate, Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, on Friday, released the suspended Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Paul Slowe, on a combined total of $325,000 bail for sexual assault and conspiracy to defraud the Guyana Police Force (GPF) of over $10 million.

The retired Assistant Commissioner of Police was arraigned at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court following the issuance of a summons for him to appear.

He was first expected to appear in court back in May but did not. Given the belief that he was out of the jurisdiction at the time, he was charged in absentia.

Slowe, along with several retired and serving members of the Guyana Police Force, were charged with conspiracy to defraud following a Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) investigation.

The others who were charged are retired Assistant Commissioners, Clinton Conway and Claude Whittaker; retired Senior Superintendent, Michael Sutton; current Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries-Junor; retired Senior Superintendent, George Fraser; retired Superintendent, Mark Gilbert; Assistant Superintendent, Marlon Kellman, and Woman Senior Superintendent, Marcelene Washington.

The particulars of the charge allege that Slowe, together with Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, Gilbert, Andries-Junor, Washington, Sutton, and Kellman, between March 1, 2019, and July 7, 2020, at the GPF Headquarters, conspired to defraud the Force of $10,056,000 by paying Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert, the said sum, without complying with the proper procedures.

Slowe was not required to enter a plea to the indictable charge and was released on $100,000 bail. This matter will be called again on November 26.

SOCU’s investigation allegedly revealed that former Commissioner of Police, Leslie James, unilaterally hired Conway, Whittaker, Gilbert and Fraser, all former GPF officers, to conduct a complete revision of the force’s Standing Orders in March 2019.

SOCU is alleging that James made no contractual agreements, with specifications, of what was to be revised, and the terms of payments, and also that he did not prepare a budget for the service that was being rendered.

Further, SOCU posits that seeing that the payment was in excess of $10M, it should have been budgeted for, and sent to the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) for approval; however, James never sought nor received approval from the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Security nor the NPTAB.

SOCU is contending that the same Standing Orders James hired the ex-officers to revise had already been revised “by highly qualified and competent policy analysts” of the Strategic Planning Unit of the GPF. It was also discovered during the said SOCU investigation that while the enormous sum of money was paid to the former police officers, they are yet to provide the force with a completed revised Standing Order.

The probe found that from March 2019, payment accounts were prepared upon the instruction of the then-Head of the Strategic Planning Unit (SPU), Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries-Junor, and when he was transferred to the force’s Public Relations Department in November 2019, he allegedly instructed his successor to continue making the payments, which was done until February 2020.

Meanwhile. during his court appearance on Friday, three counts of sexual assault were also read to Slowe. It is alleged that between March 26 and April 2, 2019, at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, he allegedly touched a female rank in a sexual way by rubbing her left leg and foot without her consent.

He was not required to plead to the charges and was released on a total of $225,000. Slowe was represented by attorneys-at-law Selwyn Pieters and Patrice Henry.

Magistrate Isaacs-Marcus adjourned the case until November 26.