**SOURCE: TRINDAD EXPRESS:** AN ATTORNEY who is currently facing fraud charges, and was suspended from practising last year, was yesterday ordered to serve 14 days in prison for contempt of court.
The sentence was imposed by Justice Frank Seepersad on Kavita Crystal Persad over her failure to repay more than $129,000 to a man who had transferred $109,050 to her bank account in 2022.
Based on an agreement between the two, Persad was required in turn to provide the man, Kyle Hope-Singh, a finance manager at Ben Industries Caribbean Ltd, with the equivalent in US currency.
Persad was detained yesterday by High Court marshals in the courtroom at the Waterfront Judicial Centre, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, until police arrived to take her away to serve her time in jail.
Justice Seepersad found that she had flouted a consent order in which she agreed to repay the money by August 12 last year, plus interest.
The initial contempt application was brought in July 2024, but when the matter came up for hearing that same month, Persad indicated she would able to make the payment in full the following month.
This, however, did not materialise.
In spite of her being sent to prison, Persad, of Factory Road, Piarco, is still required to repay the money. Hope-Singh had filed legal action against Persad in 2023 after he made multiple unsuccessful attempts to recover the cash.
During yesterday’s hearing, Hope-Singh was represented by attorney Brandon Rajkumar, while Persad represented herself.
In making his order, Justice Seepersad noted that Persad was a practising attorney when she entered into the consent order in which she had agreed to pay the $129,424 in full.
‘When the consent order was entered into in July 2024, it was not done by a lay person. It was done by the defendant who was an attorney-at-law and who would have understood that if she did not comply with the consent order she entered into, there would have been consequences to flow,’ he said.
Justice Seepersad stated that in Trinidad and Tobago there is a heightened degree of lawlessness and the court was not prepared to tolerate such behaviour nor will it condone the non-compliance of court orders.
‘Unless an order has been set aside, the terms of that order must be complied with. It was open to Ms Persad to come before the court and ask that the terms (of the order) be varied because of the operative circumstances, but that was not a course of action that Miss Persad adopted,’ said the judge.
In addition to committing her to prison, Justice Seepersad directed that she bear Hope-Singh’s legal costs in the amount of $7,500 with a stay of execution of the cost order of 28 days.
Last July, Persad was suspended from practising law in this country, having been charged the month prior for the alleged larceny of $224,625 from a client after she was retained to provide legal services in relation to a land transaction.
By notice published in Gazette No. 106 of 2024, dated July 8, it was stated that Persad was suspended from the roll of Attorneys- at-Law on July 5, 2024.
On June 3, 2024, Persad appeared before a Port of Spain magistrate and was granted bail in the sum of $350,000.
That matter is still pending.
