(Trinidad Express) An attorney who was convicted and sentenced to 19 years’ in prison in 2017 after he was found guilty of kidnapping, conspiring and attempting to murder his secretary 20 years ago has lost his appeal.
That appeal was dismissed last week by a three-judge panel comprising Justices Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Malcolm Holdip and Ronnie Boodoosingh.
In their unanimous judgment against the attorney, Joseph Melville, the judges struck out all his grounds of appeal and reaffirmed the 19-year sentence imposed by the High Court.
Melville had allegedly hired three men to murder his secretary, Patricia Cox after he suspected she was speaking to others and providing information related to illegal activities in which he was involved.
His main ground of contention was that the trial judge illegally allowed prosecutors in the case to use evidence presented at the preliminary enquiry presented by one of the State’s main witness, Ainsley Alleyne.
The witness was allegedly one of the three hired by Melville to carry out the murder. While he testified at the preliminary enquiry, Alleyne himself was murdered prior to the High Court trial taking place.
At the appeal, Melville’s attorney Evans Welch challenged the process used by prosecutors to tender Alleyne’s deposition into evidence.
In response to his challenge, State attorneys Travers Sinanan and Tricia Hudlin-Cooper argued that the trial judge, Justice Maria Wilson (now an Appeal Court Judge) was best-placed to decide whether Alleyne’s evidence at the enquiry could have been used at the trial based on the totality of the evidence at the High Court.
In their judgment, the Appeal Court panel stated while the trial judge used an incorrect procedure to tender a photograph of Alleyne’s dead body into evidence for his aunt to identify, it could have still been used as evidence in the trial.
“She was in a proper position to make a determination. There was no miscarriage of justice,” Sinanan had stated at the hearing of the appeal.
The judges also disagreed with Welch over whether the State had provided sufficient evidence to support its claim that Alleyne was deceased and could not testify and rejected complaints over Alleyne’s testimony in which he allegedly made prejudicial statements over Melville’s character.
“In the event that the judge had given the specific warning to the jury on how to deal with the impugned evidence in relation to the credibility limb of the good character direction, we do not believe that it would have made a difference to the verdict given the strength of the evidence,” the judges stated.
The State’s case was that Melville hired Alleyne, Hilton Winchester and Jason Holder to murder Cox in 2001.
In his deposition, Alleyne claimed that on June 28, 2001, he was approached by Melville, through a mutual friend, Holder, and was offered $40,000 to kill Cox.
“He said she (Cox) was talking his business with the police and Fraud Squad was getting close,” Alleyne had stated.
Cox, in her testimony, admitted that she had threatened to report him after she learned that Melville had cashed in two insurance policies and failed to pay them to his client.
Alleyne testified that he, Holder and Winchester got instructions from Melville to drive to and wait by his office at Pembroke Street in Port of Spain where Cox would meet them, for what she believed would be a drive to collect legal documents at a client’s home.
He said after Cox got into the car, Winchester drove to Cumberland Hill in St James.
Before reaching the location, Alleyne “locked” Cox’s neck while Holder stripped her of her clothes and jewelry.
He admitted to attempting to sexually assault Cox in the car but claimed to have stopped after she said she said she was on her period.
Alleyne had testified that upon reaching the location, they took Cox out of the car and placed her to sit on a boulder next to a precipice as they pondered how they would kill her as they had no knives or guns.
In her evidence, Cox said she offered the men a larger sum than what Melville was paying for them to save her life.
As the men contemplated the offer, she jumped from the precipice and hiked through a forested area until she found her way to a housing development the next morning before contacting police.
Alleyne stated in his testimony at the Magistrates’ Court that hours later he and Holder went to Melville’s home at Sangre Grande where he told Melville that he strangled Cox with his vest but could not say if she was dead as he and Holder were forced to quickly push her over the precipice as they had noticed a car approaching them.
Following his conviction, Melville he was ordered to serve a 19-year sentence for attempting to murder Cox, 14 years for kidnapping her, nine years for conspiring to murder her and four years for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
All of those sentences were to run concurrently, meaning the Melville was only ordered to serve the highest sentence of 19 years.
