Accused embezzlers get help from high places

And in a footnote to a story we reported on Thursday, Floyd Peters Junior and Fidelio Montez, arrested and charged with theft and conspiracy in the embezzlement of seventy-eight thousand dollars from the Marketing Board in San Ignacio, have been released on bail of ten thousand dollars each. And while the cash and sureties to guarantee that bail were not finalised until today, the pair, unlike most accused criminals, did not have to spend the weekend in the lock up. Why not? Sources in Cayo tell News 5 that a friendly phone call from Police Commissioner Carmen Zetina at the behest of a close relative of Peters sprung the two nineteen year olds into the relative’s custody. According to Commissioner Zetina, the defendants presented no flight risk and his act of kindness was well within the bounds of the law. According to legal practitioners consulted by News 5, however, our judicial system does not provide for the issuance of get-out-of-jail-free cards and, in the absence of making bail, an accused criminal is by law to be remanded to prison.