Delcina Bean-Burrows calls shipping company President to testify
The jury in a long-running case of alleged fraud against Government heard the final piece of evidence yesterday, eleven weeks to the day after it began.Kyril Burrows and Delcina Bean-Burrows are accused, between them, of diverting more than $553,000 of taxpayers’ money into their own pockets.Mr Burrows, an architect who was buildings manager at the Ministry of Works and Engineering, is said to have abused his position to get the Ministry to pay for renovations to his private home.Mrs Bean-Burrows is alleged to have billed Government for health and safety work carried out by companies she ran, which prosecutors say was never done, and for products that were never supplied.They do not have a defence lawyer and are representing themselves.Yesterday, opening the case for her defence, Mrs Bean Burrows made a brief statement to the jury.“To date, you have heard evidence put forward by the Crown and you have also heard evidence put forward by Mr Burrows and myself, and all that remains now is for me to put the last bit of information for the defence,” she said.“In the last few minutes of this trial, I intend to put information that will support my defence.”She then called her only witness, David Sousa, the President of BEST shipping.She asked him about shipments from the US for her company Health Tech Renaissance.Mr Sousa confirmed that documents indicated a number of vendors imported goods to Bermuda for the company via BEST shipping.He named some vendors as “First Aid Only,” “Evac Chair Sales Corporation” and “Allied Medical Products.”He said that temporary storage was provided by BEST for items shipped in, at its Mill Creek warehouse. He said the products came in cardboard boxes, and he did not know what was in them.After he concluded his evidence, Mrs Bean-Burrows closed her case.Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons told the jury the next stage is for the prosecutor and defendants to deliver their closing speeches.Then she will give directions on the law and sum up the case before sending the jury out to consider verdicts on the 35 charges the couple face.Those charges encompass allegations of cheating, obtaining money transfers by deception, obtaining property by deception, money laundering and false accounting. Mr Burrows and his wife deny them all.