Mac used CIG card in casinos

(CNS): Despite claims by McKeeva Bush since he was arrested that the case against him was about dry cleaning bills and books he bought on a government credit card, court documents reveal that the former premier is accused of using that credit card to withdraw thousands of dollars in cash from casinos. According to the charges now filed with the courts, the UDP leader is accused of making cash withdrawals from casinos in the United States on several occasions during his first year in office. The charge sheet states that Bush withdrew more than $50,000 on at least four occasions between July 2009 and April 2010. 

The charge sheets suggest that Bush abused his office, breached the people's trust and stole thousands of dollars on a Royal Bank of Canada government credit card, which had been issued to him to use in his role as the country’s leader on government business. The documents do not state where the casinos were other than being in the United States and indicate that Bush made cash withdrawals presumably from ATMs.

The charges against Bush were transmitted into the Grand Court on Friday after the former premier and leader of the UDP, who is fighting the forthcoming election and hoping to be returned for an eighth time for thedistrict of West Bay, appeared in court for the first time.

The man who was the first premier of the Cayman Islands and elected to office as the country's leader in May 2009 is now due to appear in Grand Court on Friday 26 April for a mention in the higher court and begin the case management of the process towards trial. It is not clear when Bush will enter what are expected to be not guilty pleas to the charges against him but he has vigorously denied all of the allegations since his arrest last December.

The first charge against Bush is for misconduct in public office when he made an unauthorized cash withdrawal on the government credit card in casino establishments in the United States of US$8,467.26 sometime between July 2009 and September 2009, just weeks after he was returned to office.

The second charge of misconduct in public office alleges he made another cash withdrawal on the government card between 12 September 2009 and 4 December 2009, again in an American casino of US$6,980.80. The third count against the former premier is a charge of theft based on the first withdrawal of US$8,467.26 and thefourth count is the theft of the second sum.

Meanwhile, the fifth count and a third theft charge refers to US$17,478.43, which was stolen between 18 January and 1 April 2010 via the government-issued card. The sixth count and the fourth charge of theft is for US$17,074.66, again on the government credit card sometime between 17 March and 21 April 2010.

Another theft of US$1,026.08 on the credit card on or about 23 April 2010 makes the seventh count. The remaining four charges against the premier relate to breach of trust by a member of the Legislative Assembly in relation to several of the theft charges, which were also cash withdrawals from American casinos.