Counselor Gbeisay,
By introduction, my name is Tony Leewaye a Liberian resident in Minnesota. We met at Mr. Mark Dormah’s home when you visited Minnesota a few years back.
I have always admired your intelligence and legal skills before and more so, during our conversation and also followed your activities in Liberia. I’m seeking contact to point out few procedural errors in the ongoing case between Government of Liberia and Cllr. Varney Sherman et-all.
Cllr. Gbeisay, let me remind you that this case is being monitored all over the world and is a test case to fighting institutionalized corruptions in our Nation. And so, I’m very concerned about the role of the Government of Liberia’s lead lawyer, in this case, Cllr. T.C. Gould, making an application to suspend testimony of the Government first witness in the middle of his testimony in favor of defendants and your subsequent ruling.
In my view, a lawyer representing the Government of Liberia has no business objecting or stopping the testimony of his own witness to investigate an allegation by the defendants, alleging that their emails were hacked into. Given that it has not been established that this witness was involved in the collection of evidence(s) in questioned, I see no legal reasoning for Cllr. Gould’s application in favor of defendants and you subsequent ruling.
My understanding in a criminal proceeding is that the burden of requesting the court to stop ongoing testimony to hear new development lies with the defense lawyers, not lawyers representing the plaintiff, the Government of Liberia in this case. These strange developments are worrisome at best, especially given Cllr. T.C. Gould’s past records of corruptions in court.
Given that this very important case is taking a strange direction, where the lead lawyer of the Government, Cllr. T.C Gould is making application in favor of defendants to suspend ongoing investigation until defense allegations can be proven, I have some questions that need your immediate attention and they are:
1. Who is responsible for making application to suspend ongoing testimony?
2. When can a witness whose testimony is in progress be stopped to hear an alleged fraud allegation?
3. When can an application investigating an alleged fraud be entertained in an ongoing investigation?
4 Who bears the burden to proof an alleged fraud in a criminal case: State or the Defense?
5. What are grounds for your decisions in this case thus far?
Tony Leewaye,
Advocate for Social, Political and Economic Transformation of Liberia
763 528 3309 or [email protected]