THE fraud trial of Winston Munroe, chairman of the Low Income Family Foundation (LIFF) and his secretary Lillian Chambers, was Wednesday set for Monday, February 27, when it came up for mention in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court.

Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Lewellyn told Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle that the prosecution was awaiting information from its last witness, Detective Sergeant Carey Lawes of the Fraud Squad.

At the same time, defence attorney Eric Frater said his colleague lawyer had mislaid his notes in the case and was not able to begin his examination.

The magistrate then volunteered, in the interest of justice, to photocopy his notes from the part-heard case and make it available to defence attorneys.

Munroe and Chambers were arrested in 2001 and charged with 19 counts of fraudulent conversion and conspiracy to defraud more than $70 million, which they allegedly collected from more than 400 depositors to build houses at Edwards Heights, St Catherine.

They were arrested after Fraud Squad detectives were called in by the depositors to probe allegations of irregularities in the housing project.

It was alleged that LIFF collected the money to build more than 1,000 houses, but the foundation did not have a title for the land.

One depositor, Albertha McDonald, 78, of Portmore in St Catherine, who moved around with the help of a walker, told the magistrate she had paid LIFF $400,000 in 1994 and was unable to get her house. "Judge, as you can see I am now a crippled woman so I need the case to be completed now," she said. The magistrate said he understood her anxiety but he was trying his best.

Thirty-five of the depositors attended court Wednesday.

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