Ricketts’ lawsuit woes continue

MICHAEL RICKETTS, head of Jamaica’s football governing body, has largely failed to honour a Supreme Court order to pay nearly $9 million in damages to a Clarendon businessman arising from a lawsuit, which has come with some consequences.

Last month, a 2014 Mercedes-Benz GL450 owned by Ricketts was sold at a public auction for $3.35 million which will be turned over to Ainsley Lowe, the businessman who filed the defamation lawsuit, sources disclosed.

“The system around that seems protracted and involves the Accountant General Department. It’s not straightforward,” Lowe said yesterday.

The vehicle was confiscated in April this year after the court gave the Kingston and St Andrew Bailiff’s Office authorisation to enforce the debt through a “seize and sale” order.

According to court records, Ricketts did not contest the lawsuit, which stemmed from comments he made in reference to Lowe, former owner of the Clarendon-based Sporting Central Academy Football Club, during an interview on Hitz92FM radio on February 28, 2017.

At the end of a hearing in January last year, a judge ordered him to pay Lowe general damages of $8 million and $1 million in aggravated damages.

“The defendant’s failure to file a defence is an admission that he is liable for the defamatory remarks,” said the judge who presided over the assessment of damages hearing, making reference to Ricketts.

COURT ORDER

Lowe said the court subsequently ordered Ricketts to pay him $2 million to cover his legal costs.

He acknowledged during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner last month that the JFF boss made one payment of $1.5 million on May 6 last year, but said he has heard nothing more about the balance, which is accruing interest.

“So, I figure that what is happening now is that whatever assets [owned by Ricketts] that the court can put their hands on, they will seek to liquidate them so that they can pay the monies over to me,” he said.

“I am just amazed that the judgment has been handed down for so long and he has made no final payment or final arrangement as to how the payment will be made. I just figure that he doesn’t take it seriously, I don’t know.”

That position, Lowe said, remained unchanged up to yesterday.

The Sunday Gleaner submitted questions related to the case on Friday to Ricketts, president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), via an email address provided by the JFF, but there was no response up to late yesterday.

Calls to his mobile phone went unanswered.

It is unclear whether Ricketts will face additional enforcement action, including committal proceedings to have him jailed for failing to pay the debt.

Committal proceeding is a tool provided for in Jamaican law to allow citizens to essentially compel a judgment debtor to pay, one legal expert explained.

“The sale of the Benz is not going to cover the balance, so they may sue him again. And this time they are not going to seek an order for seize and sale, they are going to commit his body to prison if he doesn’t pay,” said one source.

Lowe said he thought Ricketts would take the matter seriously after his vehicle was seized, but insisted that having the JFF boss jailed was not his “goal”.

“My goal is just for him to pay or at least make an arrangement. But my attorneys haven’t heard from him and I certainly haven’t heard from him in terms of what he intends to do,” the businessman said last month.

“And that is what’s amazing to me that a big respectable man in the country is not even making an arrangement to say this is how he plans to pay.”