Disbarred Attorney To Face Trial For Defrauding Mavado On December 5

Disbarred attorney-at-law Jennifer Messado is expected to stand trial on December 5 on allegations that she defrauded Mavado of more than $30 million in a real estate deal in 2018.

Prominent attorney-at-law Christopher Townsend, who is representing Messado, gave a brief update on the status of that case.

“The Mavado case has not started, they (the prosecution) never bothered with their application for Mavado to give evidence out of the jurisdiction, so it was adjourned. They feel they may not need him to make their case so there are some interesting times ahead,” Townsend said.

The Father God deejay had wanted to give his testimony in the long-running fraud case via video link from the US during an earlier trial date, and his attorney, Oswest Senior Smith, had made an application to this effect. At the time, there was some doubt about his testimony as there had been talk of an outstanding warrant for the entertainer’s arrest in relation to an incident years ago.

Senior-Smith had said that the issue was moot because Mavado’s testimony was not “critical” to the case.

“From my perusal of the file, the critical witnesses are the two who gave the accused lawyer the various sums on behalf of Mr. Brooks,” Senior-Smith told DancehallMag in an earlier interview.

“Mr. Brooks’ potential testimony is little more than providing a framework.”

Mrs. Messado, who has been disbarred, is accused of defrauding the entertainer in a real estate deal. It is alleged that in April 2018, Mavado was introduced to a property at Grosvenor Terrace, Kingston 8 and started making arrangements to purchase the property through his attorney, Tamika Harris.

Messado reportedly professed to have been given permission to oversee the sale as the owner was incarcerated overseas.

Mavado later reportedly paid Messado $30.7 million for the property and signed a sale agreement and a document giving him possession.

However, it was later discovered that the property was not for sale and that the owner was not incarcerated.

The property owner further indicated that he did not know Messado and never gave her permission to sell his property.

Following the alleged fraud, Mavado was reportedly reimbursed $7 million.

However, after several attempts to recover his money failed he reported the matter to the police, and Messado was arrested and charged with obtaining money by false pretense.