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Cayman Airways staff lace up for Feed our Future
(CAL): Launching the airline’s 46th anniversary celebrations, Cayman Airways employees and their friends and families recently staged their first annual charitable 5k Fun Run/Walk, lacing up in support of Feed our Future, a local-based charity with the mission to provide children in need with free school meals. Fabian Whorms, President and CEO of Cayman Airways, says the objective was to bring CAL employees together for a morning of fun, team-building and exercise, in support of a good cause. “This is a very special time of year for Cayman Airways as we celebrate our 46th anniversary and reflect on our support for the Cayman community over the past year.
"I am proud of all the staff who came out to support Feed our Future and participate with their colleagues, friends, and families.”
Whorms said that throughout each year, Cayman Airways invests and sponsors many events within the local community. “Our culture of caring extends beyond our offices, and it was great to host the Fun Run/Walk to actively involve all our employees. Together we raised CI$778 for Feed our Future.”
Stacy VanDevelde, Chairwoman of Feed Our Future, said: “Feed Our Future was honored to be the chosen charity to benefit from this unique Cayman Airways event which brought together their management and staff in support of needy children in Cayman and express our sincere appreciation for their generosity. We are always inspired by such community driven initiatives which further support our mission of connecting children in Cayman to nutritious food when at school.”
Cayman Airways proudly contributes to the sustainable growth and development of the local economy and people of the Cayman Islands, and supports over 300 events and organizations annually through community funding and sponsorships.
The fun run/walk started and ended at the airline’s headquarters building at 91 Owen Roberts Drive, looping around industrial park, and was open to all levels of participants.
Turtle Farm not the sole focus of animal charity
(CNS Business): World Animal Protection (WAP), the international animal charity that has been critical of the Cayman Turtle Farm, doesn’t just focus on issues surrounding the CTF but deals with a range of different animal welfare issues around the world, ranging from the terrible conditions of farm animals, assisting with disaster management, as well as wildlife issues. For over a decade WAP has been working towards ending the problem of bear farming in South Korea, in Vietnam and in China, where bears are kept in cages and their gallbladders are drained on a regular basis to produce traditional Asian medicine. Watch video on CNS Business
Former governor has ‘meet and greet’ with premier
(CNS): Former Governor John Owen is visiting the Cayman Islands, according to the office of the premier. Although no details were given about the visit or any clues as to whether this is a formal visit or a vacation, he apparently visited Premier Alden McLaughlin on the afternoon of Tuesday 12 August "for a meet and greet". Owen served as governor from 16 October 1995 until his retirement on 5 May 1999, after which he continued to pursue a variety of business, civic and charitable concerns. His distinguished career in business and in public service led to the award of an MBE in 1979.
Major traffic delays in Spotts
(CNS): The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service is advising drivers that there are delays in traffic caused by road repairs carried out earlier today to avoid Spotts straight (Shamrock Road) if at all possible. Police are recommending that motorist use the East-West Arterial until the matter has been resolved.
NWDA must send suitable candidates for jobs
(CNS Business): There have been too many instances where candidates who are ill-equipped for the position are sent to the local businesses by the National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA), according to Chamber of Commerce President Johann Moxam. It’s important to ensure that suitably qualified are identified and then sent out to the job market, he told CNS Business. Watch the video on CNS Business
‘Old lady’ had been arrested
(CNS): A 64-year-old witness in the trial of Raziel Jeffers for the shooting death of numbers man Marcos Duran on 11 March 2010 was arrested by police thirteen months after the incident on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, it was revealed in court Monday. Rita Martinez, who used to buy illegal lottery numbers from Duran and whose home he was visiting just before he was shot during a bungled robbery by three armed men, was summoned to court as a witness for the joint trial of Jeffers and Jordan Manderson on 18 April 2011. That trial did not go ahead as the two men were ultimately tried separately, but as Martinez, who was 61 at the time, was leaving the court a police officer asked her to come to the police station, and there she was arrested.
Rita Martinez, the aunt of Meagan Martinez, who was also a witness in this trial, said that on the night of his death Duran had come to her apartment on Maliwinas Way in West Bay sometime after 7pm. It wasn’t one of his usual nights and he had just dropped by to ask if she wanted to buy some numbers.
She told the court that she was alone in the apartment except for her common law husband’s mother when Duran arrived – conflicting with Meagan’s testimony that Jeffers had been there to give his three ‘solders’ the heads up when to rob him.
Rita Martinez said that when Duran left, she went back to her sitting room to watch TV, but then she heard a thump as if something hit the door, and when she looked through the window, she saw his body lying outside but did not see anyone else.
She had given a statement to the police the night of the murder and a second a few days later on the 15 March, and a third on 5 May that year, and in those first three statements she had not said that Jeffers was there that night. But on the 7 June, she had made another statement in which she said that Jeffers had come to her home around 7:10 that night to ask if Meagan and their baby were there. Shortly after he left Duran had arrived and Martinez said in the June statement that the two men could have passed each other on the staircase or in the parking lot.
However, in court Monday she said she had been confused by the police when she gave that statement because they had said that someone had told them that Jeffers had been there that night. When she thought about it afterwards she decided she had been wrong about him being there and stuck to this version of events on the witness stand.
Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryll Richards, QC, suggested to her that it was the June statement that was the truth and she was deliberately concealing the fact that Jeffers had been there that night because she did not want to get involved. She asked Martinez how could she not have remembered who was there on such an unusual and startling night. The crown also noted that another niece of hers, Diane, is now married to Jeffers.
Brian O'Neill, QC, for the defence led her through the events of her arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. Rita Martinez, 61 years old at the time, had come as a good citizen to give evidence on 18 April 2011 in the joint trial of Jeffers and Manderson (who was later tried separately and acquitted).
But as Martinez was leaving the courthouse, an officer had asked her to come to the police station and she had been arrested. A lawyer, Nicola Moore, had come to represent her and a prepared statement had been given to the police, in which she described herself as an “old lady who gets very confused”.
When she was summoned as a witness for Manderson’s trial she brought a letter for the judge, together with a doctor’s note, asking to be excused from giving evidence because she was very stressed and confused, suffering from acute anxiety, and was on medication for depression and other ailments.
Chief Justice Anthony Smellie, who had called the witness to the court, asked Martinez about her job at this time. She said she had been working as a human resource officer at Red Sail Sports, dealing with work permits and other staff matters.
Read related story on CNS:
Newly convicted lifer tied knot in jailhouse wedding
(CNS): A man who was convicted last week of the murder of Robert Macford Bush in a gang-related shooting tied the knot in prison while on remand for his crime. Brian Borden, who was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence, married his girlfriend in HMP Northward in June. The pictures of Borden's wedding ceremony were posted on Facebook recently and show the couple dressed in full wedding gear just weeks ahead of Borden's trial, despite facing a lifetime behind bars. All inmates are allowed to marry if they choose and Borden and his girlfriend would have been given counseling, given his potential sentence. However, on hearing the verdict last week his new bride was distraught and collapsed outside the courthouse.
Borden, who has been in jail since his arrest almost two years ago, was found guilty of shooting Bush, his gang rival, in a killing which triggered a series of gang related tit-for-tat murders across Grand Cayman in which several young man were gunned down.
Bush was shot as he sat in his car at the junction of Birch Tree Hill Road and Capts Joe and Osbert Rd in West Bay, after crashing the vehicle in his efforts to escape the two armed gunmen.
Read related article on CNS:
Jeffers’ ex describes tangled gang relationships
(CNS): Admitting to being a “wild child” in her youth, the crown’s key witness stood firm under cross examination as Brian O'Neill, QC, tried to paint her as the “Logwood Princess”, which she has on a tattoo, and an unreliable witness. Meagan Martinez gave evidence that Raziel Jeffers told her about the plan he had to get some of his ‘soldiers’ from the Birch Tree Hill gang to rob numbers man, Marcos Mauricio Duran, on Thursday 11 March 2010 in an armed stick-up in Maliwinas Way, and later told her how he had died. Martinez roundly defended her past, admitting without hesitation that she had been around guns and gangs since she was 13 years old, but repeatedly refused to accept that she was “devious”, only that as an abandoned child she had been “angry” and “troubled”.
Answering questions from the defence, Martinez agreed that in her testimony she was repeating what had happened during the shootout according to what Jeffers had told her, and he had probably got the story from Craig Johnson the day after the incident as they cleaned Jordan Manderson’s blood off the getaway car. Furthermore, since Johnson was the driver and waiting in the car when it happened, he most likely was repeating what he had been told by one of the other three young men said to be involved, O’Neill suggested and Martinez agreed.
The “Logwoods Princess” tattoo on her leg was a tribute to Robert Bush, a member of the rival gang. Her relationship with Bush had started when she was about 15 and she had “loved him to the end”, she said. However, she also said she had loved Jeffers and did not want them to kill each other and had once begged Bush not to hurt Jeffers, the father of her baby. She also admitted to having a relationship with Damion Ming, who had been involved with drugs and guns but, she claimed he was not part of either gang but “played in the middle”, which, she said, "does not work".
Asked by the defence, she said she remembered being in bed with Robert Bush one night when his house was shot up and she was grazed by one of the bullets.
But when she was with Jeffers, part of the Birch Tree Hill gang, she said that when Andy Barnes, a Logwoods member, had threatened to throw the baby she had for Jeffers into the air and shoot it, she took it seriously because his child had recently been killed.
She also admitted lying to the police about an incident when, she said, Andy Barnes and another man had been outside a house that she and Jeffers and their baby were in and had pointed a gun first at the dog and then at the building. She said that Jeffers had seen them from the window but would not tell that to the police, so she had told them that she had seen the two men because she was afraid for her child.
After the Maliwinas Way shooting, she admitted telling her social worker that she believed that someone was after her to get at Jeffers. It was part of the cover story (that the robbery had been carried out by the Logwoods gang), she said.
Martinez admitted that she had smoked ganja, had had underage sex, had frequently run away from the Francis Bodden Girls’ Home in her youth and had lied to social workers on numerous occasions. She also admitted to anger issues, having stabbed Jeffers in the knee with a pen on one occasion. “I don’t deny any of the issues I have,” Martinez said.
Martinez is now in the witness protection programme in another country and she admitted receiving $100,000 in living and medical expenses over the last four years, but said the enormous stress of this case had brought her close to a nervous breakdown and she was worried what would happen to her young child if that happened. She had loved Jeffers, she said, but was adamant that she was now telling the truth for the sake of her young child.
“It’s not about getting back at him and not a vendetta. It’s about getting to the truth,” she told the court. She said the situation was “not my son’s fault”, adding, “People must take responsibility for their actions.”
She said that Jeffers “never expected me to do anything or to fight back”. She had thought that Jeffers was powerful and “for a long time that worked; I was frightened. But now I see that he is pathetic, now I see he is just as frightened as all the rest.”
The case continues in Grand 'Court Monday.
Related stories on CNS:
Get-away driver admits part in NYD jewel stick-up
(CNS): The third man accused of armed robbery in connection with the daylight stick-up on New Year's Day in downtown George Town has admitted his part in the heist but has pleaded not guilty to possession of an unlicensed firearm. Christopher Julian Myles admits to having driven the vehicle to the scene at Diamonds International where his two partners in crime, James McLean and Jonathan Ramoon, held up Diamond's International and stole over $800,000 worth of jewels. However, he says he did not know about the 38 Smith and Weston revolver used in the robbery. The crown has not yet confirmed if it is willing to accept Myles plea and avert the need for a trial.
The three men were all arrested in the immediate wake of the crime as a result of an unusual coincidence. Just as the robbers attempted to make their escape, Police Commissioner David Baines, who was off duty at the time, happened to be sitting in his parked car nearby waiting to meet a friend from a cruise ship. As a result, the top cop chased after the robbers and forced their vehicle off the road and crashed into the car, undermining their getaway. When the robbers abandoned their vehicle and tried to flee on foot, the commissioner continued the pursuit in his car. In the process he ran over Ramoon, who sustained a number of serious injuries as a result.
The commissioner was cleared of any wrongdoing in an internal investigation over the level of force used.
The robbers were arrested on the same day and charged soon after and have been held on remand since. Ramoon and McLean have already admitted both robbery and possession of an unlicensed firearm, and if the crown accepts Myles' plea, the sentencing for all three is expected to take place in October. The case has been adjourned until 29 August, when the prosecuting counsel will confirm the crown's decision over Myles.
Brac teens charged over booze burglary
(CNS): Two 17-year-old boys from Cayman Brac have been charged with stealing 19 bottles of alcohol from a local bar and possession of ganja after appearing in court last week. Geoff Ryan Scott and Torry Javier Powery were charged in connection with a break-in at the Coral Isle Bar. Police arrested the youngsters after one bottle of the stolen loot was discovered at Scott's house, where both boys were staying, and others were then found hidden on property nearby. Scott was bailed on a tag but with no one to sign surety for him, Powery was remanded in custody until the teenagers' next court appearance on 14 August.