He didn't ask for it, but Corporal Carlos Choco of the Orange Walk Police Station has become a central figure in the Joseph Budna kidnapping saga. Choco had no role in the kidnapping itself - he simply responded to the incident as it unfolded outside his police station.
But since then, he has been pulled into what appears to be a cover-up, one that - based on evidence obtained by 7News - seems to involve the complicity of senior officers. Choco has effectively been pushed into the role of an unwitting and unwilling accessory, pressured to give an empty witness statement that ended up in the "less than nothing" file police sent to the DPP.
He later confided to a colleague about how he was urged to give that second statement. That colleague secretly recorded the conversation. A portion of that recording was leaked to our newsroom. Jules Vasquez has the story. We have redacted the name of the senior officer Choco identifies:
Corporal Carlos Choco - he was the NCO in charge in Orange Walk on the night of August 22nd - and he was the one who went to see what was causing the disturbance across the street from the station.
When he got there, he saw three police officers beating a man on the ground, Ryan Joseph Budna. A man identified as Constable Barry Flowers walked over to wave off Choco - and allegedly tell him they were on a mission for a senior officer. Choco dutifully went about his business and got a concerned civilian to do the same.
In a secret, never before heard recording Choco can be heard telling a fellow officer that he gave a true statement saying what Flowers told him - and then, in the ACP Suzette Anderson investigation - he was made to give another by a senior officer. In that one he was made to say he did not recognize the kidnappers:
Voice of: Cpl. Carlos Choco, Secret Recording
"To give the second statement mek I noh recognize the person they and everything - they ask me fi do that."
"Mi di ask me, but I tell Cowo. Cowo tell me not to do that. He told me let me write the, what I see. It's the first one which I read is what Mr Cowo told me to do, so I write the truth and everything. That statement there has my original signature."
"The second the second statement that they want me to do I just did one little thing, and that's not my signature. Because I was worrying too. Because I don't want to write anything and at the end of the day they turn it on me."
And, not only was he made to give a false statement - that statement was also falsely backdated:
Voice of: Cpl. Carlos Choco, Secret Recording
"Friday was the original statement. They just backdated the one from the 23rd. They made it show like they did something on the 23rd."
"The 23rd of August because this happened the 22nd, right? So the 23rd they backdated the statement to show like, yeah. But the original statement that I made was Friday, I think it was the fifth (of September)."
And that second bogus statement from a police eyewitness to the kidnapping is part of the file that the DPP characterized so harshly:
November 12
Cheryl Lynn Vidal, Director of Public Prosecutions
"And I apologize as a director for saying this, but I was always expecting that there would have been nothing in the file."
"What I was not expecting was that there would be less than nothing in the file, which is really my characterization of what has been put before me."
We attempted to reach Corporal Choco for comment but were unsuccessful. We did reach the senior officer named in the recording. He told us - and we withhold his name for now - quote:
"I totally refute all allegations and insinuations of misconduct that are alleged to have been made against me. I have been a serving member of the Belize Police Department for 26 years and hold an unblemished record."
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