Theft charges dropped; income tax employee freed

And in the courts, the prosecution was unable to prove a prima facie case of theft against a cashier from the Income Tax Department. The case concluded today and Natasha Kingston was free to go when five witnesses called to the stand were unable to provide substantiating evidence to prove the charges of theft. Kingston was accused of stealing six thousand four hundred plus dollars from the Income Tax Department over a period between October 2007 and February 2008. After testimonies by Marilyn Ordonez; the Commissioner of Income Tax; Vashti Stanford, internal auditor, Fredrick Haylock, supervisor; Stella Codd, Clerk, and Kareem Patnett, a Computer Technician, Kingston’s attorney Arthur Saldivar, asked that the charges be withdrawn. The prosecution and the Chief Magistrate agreed that there was no evidence to proceed to trial. Noteworthy is that Vashti Stanford, who did the internal audit, told the court that the department checked once a month to verify or reconcile payments made to the cashiers. Haylock also told the court he was unable to say if Kingston had done anything wrong in connection with the missing money. Codd testified that when she reconciled Kingston’s account, all the money was accounted for.