Police Supt demands compensation or $50M lawsuit for cover-up claims by Bascom
Police Superintendent Mitchell Caesar said that the bribe-taking allegation to cover the murder of Ricardo Fagundes, also known as “Paper Shorts,” by Senior Police Detective Dion Bascom, is “patently false” and demanded a public apology and financial compensation.
In a Facebook live on Thursday, which he has since removed, Bascom, 33, alleged that Caesar allegedly took $30,000 million as a bribe “fuh cover-up” Fagundes’s murder.
In fact, he went on to finger several Senior members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in the bribe-taking allegations while deeming them “corrupt.”
However, Caesar’s Attorney-at-Law, Sohan Poonai, in a letter dated August 12, 2022, said that the allegations have caused “significant harm and injury to my client, his good name, his reputation and lowered his standing in the Guyanese and international community.”
Premised on this, Poonai instructed Bascom to immediately desist from repeating or making any defamatory allegations about his client, issue a retraction, and offer an “unqualified apology,” approved by Caesar.
“The apology must include an admittance that the statements uttered by you were false, misleading, and utter without justification,” the letter reads.
It continues, “That you pay my client monetary damages in a sum agreed within seven days of the date of this letter for defamation, injury to character, reputation, and goodwill and as compensation for defamation, humiliation, embarrassment, pain, and suffering.”
If Detective Bascom fails to adhere to the terms of the letter, Poonai said he was instructed to institute legal proceedings against him “without further notice” for defamation of character for damages in excess of $50 million.
To this end, Bascom was informed that his conduct had breached the Cyber Crime Act and has led the way for Caesar to institute criminal charges.
On Friday, the Guyana Police Force’s (GPF) Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) revealed that the Office of Professional Responsibility (ORP) has been instructed to commence an investigation into the allegations made by the Detective.
In a statement, the GPF said, “the Office of Professional Responsibility has since been instructed to commence an investigation.”
In March 2021, Fagundes was gunned down just after he exited Palm Court on Main Street, Georgetown, and it remains unclear whether the police are any closer to solving the crime.
But on Monday, Bascom was arrested by ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), they went to a home of a “known drug trafficker” at Norton Street, Georgetown, and a quantity of cocaine was found.
Bascom has denied knowing about the cocaine but noted that he was visiting a friend.
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