Trelawny bigamy case delayed
WESTERN BUREAU – The bigamy case against a Trelawny man accused of having two wives was delayed Monday because of an incomplete case file.
The man, Desmond Richards, of Falmouth in Trelawny, is to reappear before the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate’s Court on March 26 when an outstanding statement should have been added to the file.
The statement is that of the marriage officer who performed Richards’ first marriage.
Richards, 36, has had his $80,000 bail extended until his next court appearance.
In 1987 Richards, then 21 years old, reportedly married Loraine Gordon, three years his junior. The marriage took place in Falmouth.
Twelve years later, in 1999, Richards married again without obtaining a divorce from Gordon.
This time, the woman was 23 year-old Nicola Wright and the ceremony was performed at Montego Bay in St James.
Last October, Wright, from whom Richards was estranged at the time, learned he had married her without divorcing his first wife and reported the matter to the police.
As a result Richards, who presently shares a common-law union with another woman with whom he conceived a child, was arrested and charged for bigamy.
When the case was mentioned in the Montego Bay RM court last month, Richard’s attorney, George Duncan, attempted to justify his client’s actions.
Duncan told the court that his client had been estranged from his first wife, who migrated shortly after the 1987 marriage, for many years. He said that not knowing whether she was alive or dead, he had opted to marry the second woman.
“That first marriage was a marriage of convenience… It might well be that marriage was not consummated. That person (the first wife) migrated almost immediately (after the wedding)… He knows not whether she is dead or alive,” the attorney said.