Disbarred attorney facing jail time

Livern Barrett/Senior Staff Reporter

DISBARRED ATTORNEY Minett Palmer-Lawrence is being sought by a bailiff to enforce an order by the Supreme Court for her to be placed in prison over a US$61,000 debt owed to a businessman.

The debt stems from a failed business arrangement between Palmer-Lawrence and the businessman, Kaon Northover, dating back to 2008, which led to the revocation of her licence to practise law in Jamaica.

The Supreme Court, in a ruling made on February 28 this year, ordered that the disbarred attorney be committed to the South Camp Adult Correctional Centre in St Andrew for four weeks.

She was given a 14-day grace period, which has since expired, to pay the outstanding debt of US$61,600, plus interest at two per cent per annum, compounded from May 22 last year and $667,000, according to a copy of the order seen by The Gleaner.

The order was copied to administrators at the South Camp Adult Correctional Centre and the bailiff for the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew.

Joseph Jarrett, the attorney representing Northover, said bailiffs, who were engaged on April 21, have made numerous unsuccessful attempts to locate and arrest Palmer-Lawrence.

“My understanding is that they have gone to her house and they have gone to her known business address. When they went to her house they could not gain entry and they waited and they did not see her,” Jarrett said yesterday.

“And the same in respect of her business address.”

Palmer-Lawrence acknowledged, during a telephone interview yesterday, that she is aware of the order for her to be imprisoned, but said she was “not aware that anyone was looking for me”.

“I don’t have an office, so where would they have gone,” she said, indicating that she would make contact with the bailiff office for the Corporate Area.

The disbarred attorney disclosed, too, that she filed an application on March 21 for the committal order to be “suspended” and asking for more time to make the payment to Northover.

Palmer-Lawrence said she visited Jarrett’s downtown Kingston law offices yesterday to serve him a copy of the application.

The hearing of the application is set for tomorrow, she said.

Palmer-Lawrence is the second disbarred attorney facing a prison term in recent weeks over a debt.

Harold Brady, whose law licence was revoked in 2017, is to appear in the Supreme Court on July 20 for the hearing of an application filed by lawyers for the State-owned Factories Corporation of Jamaica to have him imprisoned for failing to turn over a $110-million debt from the sale of a property.

Palmer-Lawrence was disbarred in 2018 by a disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council (GLC), following a complaint Northover said was lodged in 2013. The GLC regulates the legal profession in Jamaica.

The committee found that she “acted dishonestly and was involved in a dishonest scheme to persuade the complainant to part with his funds in what turned out to be a fictitious investment.”

She was found guilty of professional misconduct.

As punishment, the disciplinary committee ordered Palmer-Lawrence to pay Northover US$498,000 in compensation.

She was also ordered to pay him $750,000 in legal costs.

Palmer-Lawrence, who has denied allegations of fraudulent conduct, challenged the disciplinary committee’s findings before the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal, in its decision handed down in March last year, concluded that she was not guilty of dishonesty or fraud, but affirmed the disciplinary committee’s findings that she had breached the canons of the legal profession.

It also slashed the US$498,000 the committee said Palmer-Lawrence should pay Northover to US$47,000, at an annual interest rate of two per cent from September 25, 2008.

“The order of the committee for the appellant [Palmer-Lawrence] to pay to the complainant the sum of US$498,000 as restitution is an error of law based on the erroneous finding of fact that the appellant had money in her hand or under her control to reimburse or to direct reimbursement of it,” the Court of Appeal said, explaining the decision to slash the payment.

Palmer-Lawrence acknowledged that she has missed several agreed dates to make the payment, but explained that she was awaiting the resolution of at least two cases in which Northover was ordered to pay her legal costs.

“I wanted to set off the sums due to me against the judgment,” she said.

But she said the objective now is to “pay the judgment and deal with the legal issues after”.

That was of very little comfort to Northover.

“I have all the emails that she has sent outlining the seriousness of the matter and how she is taking it serious and promising [payment] dates that are not being met…dates after dates and I’m not getting any money,” Northover lamented.

“I’ve gone through 15 years of the legal system and it’s now time to pay. She would have known about the matter long enough. It’s frustrating and it’s not fair to me.”

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com