Charges mount against former insurance manager

(CNS): David Keith Self, who is accused of stealing as much as $1 million from a Cayman incorporated insurance company, is struggling to get legal aid to pay for legal representation, despite losing his job and being remanded at HMP Northward. The former insurance manager was originally charged by the crown with only two counts of theft amounting to around $125,000, however the court heard Friday that the counts against the George Town man have increased to 18 and include a variety of offences relating to much greater sums of money and severity of accusations leaving Self exposed to a greater period of incarceration should he be convicted.

Self has not yet entered a plea in connection with the mounting charges against him relating to allegations that he misappropriated and stole cash while employed as an insurance manager with Monkton Insurance Services Ltd. Self was said to be the sole director at the firm and is accused of numerous financial crimes, including obtaining money by deception, false accounting and possession of criminal property as well as various counts of theft, including one for as much as $675,000.

Ben Tonner of Samson & McGrath wh,o is representing Self, said that given the increasing severity of the charges against his client he would be making another application for legal aid as the new charges amounted to schedule offences. Although details of the allegations against Self have not yet been revealed in the courts, liquidators for Self’s former firm filed a petition in Grand Court in April to wind up the business, described as “hopelessly insolvent”.

Gordon MacRae and Gwynn Hopkins of Zolfo Cooper (Cayman) Limited, the liquidators of the company, claim Self had wrongfully diverted cash from the insurance firm and its clients, which he used for unauthorized investments and personal expenditure.

Monkton Insurance Services was incorporated in Cayman in 1997 and is regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, which appointed controllers over the company in February stating thatSelf "was not a fit and proper person to hold the office of director", the liquidators said in the court documents.

Self was arrested on 21 February and charged in March, when he was remanded to Northward Prison.