Attorney Orson Elrington Faces Arraignment

Attorney Orson Elrington is now facing arraignment in the Belize High Court for rape.  The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is preparing an indictment that will see Elrington brought before the court by next Friday, December 20.  Yesterday, the Belize High Court denied his appeal of the Preliminary Inquiry (PI) phase, in which he claimed that the evidence of rape was insufficient, that his rights had been violated and that there was an abuse of process.  Justice Candice Nanton rendered her decision yesterday indicating that Elrington will stand trial for the rape allegations brought against him, and that there was no jurisdiction to hear his appeal of the committal to stand trial.  Back in late July, the PI was concluded and the magistrate had indicated that there was sufficient evidence to take the matter to the High Court.  Elrington’s legal team made several objections to the evidence presented by the prosecution, including the fact that there was no sobriety test conducted following the alleged incident. He also made objections to the level of involvement that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl Lynn Vidal had in the case, alleging that Vidal spoke to his accuser personally. Elrington told our newsroom that his legal team knew that it was a possibility that the appeal would be unsuccessful, and they were prepared. He says that they are now moving forward with submissions for judicial review and a constitutional challenge.

Orson “OJ” Elrington, Attorney: “Well the legal team had decided to file, we had decided to file an appeal, because we felt as though the decision of the magistrate was not in compliance with the law. And essentially we chose that course of action as a novel way of trying to deal with it. However, the judge decided that the right, the proper way would have been to bring it by way of judicial review. And essentially our contention was that one, that the judge did not properly exercise her discretion when she decided not to hear the, when she allowed evidence which should not have been entered into evidence and essentially when she decided that the matter should be sent up to the Supreme Court, because we felt as though there was no evidence to support the matter being sent up to the Supreme Court once certain evidence was removed. The evidence that we said should have been removed was statements which we say were improperly acquired by the Office of the DPP. However, the judge essentially just said that the course of action, she agreed with us when she said that the…the magistrate did have jurisdiction to hear the issue on the abuse of process, but there was a limited parameters in which to do so. And so she said what she feels is the proper course of action is by way of judicial review or a constitutional or constitutional action. So those are exactly the avenues that we will pursue in this matter. It’s an outcome which we knew was a possibility and nonetheless we went down that avenue and we have said from the beginning that we will explore every legal option and that was one of the legal options that we thought could be explored. So we will follow the opinion of the judge and we will be filing for both judicial review and we will be filing a constitutional motion.”

Ultimately, the Magistrate did not accept Elrington’s submissions.  The allegations against Elrington date back to January 11 when he reportedly took two women to his apartment who now claim that one of them was raped.  Elrington has assembled a legal team comprising of Norman Rodriguez, Dickie Bradley, and his father, Senior Counsel Hubert Elrington.