Olint investors to have a voice at Smith's sentencing
Published:Friday | August 5, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
MIAMI, Florida:
CHURCH MEMBERS across Jamaica and the United States whose monies Windemere Pastor Ainsley Blair invested with David Smith's Olint Corporation might get their cases heard at Smith's sentencing next Thursday.
Blair, who invested US$15 million with Smith, has been invited to speak at the sentencing in Orlando, Florida.
Speaking with The Gleaner yesterday in Florida, Blair said: "I am delighted and feel very privileged to have been asked by the United States government to speak at the sentencing of Smith."
Excited about the prospects, Blair added: "With many churches and church members across Jamaica, and friends and families from Miami to North Carolina who believed and trusted me with their funds, and invested their last dollar, Thursday, August 11, cannot come quickly enough."
A lot invested
The Jamaican-born pastor, who resides in Orlando, Florida, said a lot of the money invested was to help with his plans to construct a hospital in Portmore, St Catherine.
He repeated a passage of the scripture, Psalm 30:5, for the people he said Smith has hurt. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
For Smith, the investing pastor also read a passage of the scripture from Jeremiah 17:11, which says, "As a partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at the end shall be a fool."
He said the US$15 million invested would have been more than US$100 million now, and the people of Portmore would be happy to have the well-needed health facility.
Smith, who faces up to 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to 23 counts of fraud on March 30 and also signed a plea bargain with the US Federal Government.
His sentencing is rescheduled for 10 a.m. in Orlando before judge Mary S. Scriven in the US District Court.
No real profit
Smith operated a Ponzi scheme which defrauded more than US$220 million from thousands of investors in Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Florida.
Smith has also admitted he paid returns to investors from their own money, or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any real profit.
With his guilty plea in the US, David Smith saved his wife, Tracy Ann, from prosecution by American authorities.
Smith's plea deal includes a provision to provide US investigators with all the information in his possession about the other persons who participated in the Ponzi scheme.
He could also receive a reduction in his sentence if he provides the prosecutors with assistance in the prosecution of anyone else.
Last year, Smith pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in the Turks and Caicos Islands and was sentenced to just over six years in prison.
He was later arrested by the US in November and brought to Orlando, Florida, to face federal charges.