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On Friday afternoon, thirty three year old US national William Russel Jewett pleaded guilty to the charge of money laundering and was fined fifty thousand dollars or in default five years in the Belize Central Prison. The charges were brought against Jewett after US$120,000 was discovered on his sailboat, the Latitude Adjustment. During the investigation, the Financial Intelligence Unit also discovered that William Russel Jewett who is wanted in the United States for several crimes including fraud entered Belize illegally along with his wife and two year old daughter. All had false travel documents.

But Jewett’s story has taken on a wider dimension than just the allegations of criminal wrong-doing – he and his former attorney have alleged coercion and something just short of extortion by Belize’s Financial Intelligence Unit – who he alleged were working in concert with the US Embassy. Jewett got word out to court reporters making serious allegations against FIU and US officials. Jewett alleged that while he was at prison the officials allegedly told him not only to fire his attorneys but to plea guilty to money laundering.

He also alleged that US officials had brought his wife and child back to Belize after they left Belize for Cancun, Mexico and that the officials were using his family against him. Those serious allegations were echoed by his former attorney Dickie Bradley in an interview to 7News on Thursday afternoon.

Well today the Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit Marilyn Williams took issue with a number of the allegations made against the FIU not by the accused and his former attorney Dickie Bradley. In an interview with 7News the FIU director spoke at length about the matter and what transpired between the FIU officials and William Russell Jewett. She started off with the issue of whether or not the FIU had any legal rights to speak with the accused even though they were the ones who would prosecute William Russel Jewett.

Marilyn Williams, Director – FIU
“The FIU is an investigatory and it is a prosecutory unit. In its investigatory capacity, we stand in the same position as the police. So that means if we are investigating a crime, we have absolutely every right to go talk with whomever we believe is involved with committing the crime with the purpose of interviewing and ascertaining whether or not there is sufficient evidence to lay a charge of money laundering.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Court reports are that the Chief Magistrate Margaret McKenzie gave one of the reasons why she would not have accepted Mr. Jewett’s guilty plea is that he cannot be conversing with the same individuals or with the party that will be prosecuting the case.”

Marilyn Williams,
“Okay let me clarify that, when I talk about the investigatory capacity, we have police officers that work with the FIU. So in its investigatory capacity our law enforcement officers just like any police can go out there and interview whomever we choose in the process of investigating a crime. When it comes to the prosecutory aspect, we have a legal counsel who does the prosecution.

Mr. Jewett entered this jurisdiction illegally in that he entered this jurisdiction with false documents both him, his wife and his daughter entered this jurisdiction on false passports. He was a fugitive from the United States, he had monies that he didn’t declare, and he had a boat that he did not declare. Now, under those circumstances, he has violated several laws and they are not mutually exclusive, he violated immigration laws, he violated customs laws and he violated money laundering laws.

Everyone is expected to declare the funds that they are bringing into this country but let’s be clear about this; it is not just a question of declaring the money for FIU purposes. Now there is declaration for purposes of Customs, there are declarations for purposes of the Central Bank and there is declaration for purposes of the FIU. Under the FIU Act, you are expected to declare any monies that are in excess of ten thousand Belize currency no matter what currency it is.

So it could be five thousand US, Euro, whatever so long as it amounts to ten thousand Belize dollars or more but it is more than just declaring when you come and you say to us that I am declaring two hundred thousand, we just do not leave it there. We want to know where your money comes from, that is the core of any money laundering investigation. It is not just to tell us that you have the money; you need to satisfy the FIU that the money is from a legitimate source. If you cannot prove that, the law allows us to hold onto that money until such time that you can convince us that it was not ill gotten gains.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Was he able to convince the FIU once you started your investigations?”

Marilyn Williams,
“No, he was not and so the thing on Saturday and what happened was and let me say from the outset this was a collaborative effort between all the law enforcement agencies, meaning the Police, the FIU, Customs and Immigration and what was said to Mr. Jewett was you have broken all of these laws and you are going to be charged, both you and your wife; she does not get exempt. Mr. Jewett was the one who offered please do not charge my wife, I will plead guilty.

And there in is where the process started of negotiating and working out what would be in his best interest and in the FIU’s best interest. I will tell you at the end of the day from my perspective as the director of the FIU, I am not going to sit back and let someone come into this jurisdiction, flagrantly disrespect our laws and then you just get to wave a hand and leave this jurisdiction.

Had the charges been brought under the Customs Act, failure to declare the vessel would have meant that Jewett would have had to pay three times the value of that vessel so it was in Mr. Jewett’s best interest to deal with it from money laundering stand point as oppose to Customs and all this was taken into consideration when we were working out what was the best way to go. Mr. Jewett in my humble opinion displayed what I feel is typical of the criminal mind, meaning he wanted to have your cake and eat it too. He worked out a deal and in the last minute he was trying to find a way to get out of it. We agreed that okay you are going to plead guilty and in exchange we will not charge your wife and somehow or the other he thought that the answer to that was to advise his wife to leave the jurisdiction.

Well his wife had already committed an illegal act under our jurisdiction and we said she has got to come back and yes she was brought back yes to face the charges because the FIU is extremely concerned about people, fugitives from other places who come here and feel that they can you know us Belize has a safe haven. This is a message that is to be delivered out there that we are no longer going to be that that jurisdiction where you can come and so flagrantly disrespect our laws and think you can just up and leave with a minor leave, it is just not going to happen.

The allegation that there was collusion between the FIU and the US Embassy is not only ludicrous but it is highly irresponsible to have made such an allegation. At the end of the day there are competing interests here. The US Embassy has an interest in protecting its citizens but at the end of the day we have an interest in protecting our jurisdiction and our laws and there was no way that Mr. Jewett was going to walk away without paying the price for what he had done. Yes his entire family including his two year old daughter mind you entered the country on false documents so that gave us reason to charge all. Well certainly we would not charge a two year old but certainly we had enough to charge him and his wife.

He was the one that said no, do not charge my wife, I will do whatever you want. Now we could have charged him under Immigration, under Customs and under the Money Laundering Act but then we started working out what would be the least onerous, in terms of making sure that all of our needs were met and at the end of Saturday the agreement was that he would plead guilty to money laundering in exchange for us not charging his wife. And somehow between Saturday evening and Monday when he appeared in court, Mr. Jewett being the person that he is, started to waffle on his agreement. The FIU was not going to stand for that, the police were not going to stand for that, Customs was not going to stand for that and while we recognize that the US interests was to protect their citizen at the end of the day Mr. Jewett was on Belize territory and as such both he and his wife were subject to our laws and then after when we were done with him then the US could have him back.

They both entered this jurisdiction on false documents, that’s the first offence and had every right to charge both he and his wife. He is the one who did not want his wife charged. He offered to do a plea. They were not passports, they were not validly issued passports, they were probably the type of thing that you get off the internet.

I would have hoped that my learned colleague would have acted more responsibly in terms of making that type of allegations simply because we sign onto treaties, we have various legal agreements by which both jurisdictions have to comply and so many times you are put in a position, you have to work out the details so that there is compliance while at the same time protecting your various interests and like I said in this matter, the FIU’s concern was to make sure that this jurisdiction was not disrespected.

The US Embassy’s concern was to preserve the right of their citizen and I have to say that in the past that has been the source of contention between us because sometimes you know it does not always work out the way you wanted it to, we work very hard at coming to an amicable solution so that in the end, in the final analysis both are satisfied that we have gotten as much as we need to from our individual perspective but I would think that before that kind of statement was made that they should have some kind of substantiation.

I am sure that Mr. Jewett told his attorney that but he had the obligation to substantiate the allegations that were being made by his client after all I believe that probably our law enforcement people spent more time talking with Mr. Jewett than Mr. Bradley did you see. So that it is a really serious allegation that was made and like I said very very irresponsible.

Apparently at the end of the day a lot of people around here still do not comprehend what money laundering is. I thought it was simple so let me say this again. So long as you are spending money or dealing with monies that are or can be the proceeds of crime that is money laundering and under our Act it matters not whether the predicate offence, the predicate offence being the crime that was committed that led to you having these funds, it matters not whether that predicate offence occurred in this jurisdiction or another jurisdiction, it matters that you brought this money which we are saying is tainted money to our jurisdiction and you have to account for it if you cannot account for it then I am sorry that is end of the rope.”

7News understands that up to this morning William Russell Jewett was still unable to pay his fine and so tonight remains behind bars in Belize Central Prison.