Dec. 7, 2006 A high-profile double-homicide case regarding the June 2005 murders of two New York tourists has fallen victim to a personnel issue within the Department of Justice. Although the case will go to trial, the question remains who the prosecutor will be.
Ernest Bason, chief of the V.I. Justice Department criminal division, had been assigned to the case. However, Bason took family medical leave in August this year and had asked that the case be re-assigned, which it has not. In the meantime, Attorney General Kerry Drue has put Bason on leave without pay, which Bason is disputing.
The two tourists, Tristan A. Charlier and Leon H. Roberts, were on island to attend a wedding. They were shot to death in the early morning hours of June 15, 2005, near a bus stop across from the Arturo Watlington Post Office in Frenchtown (See "Friends and Family Gather to Mourn and Remember Slain Men").
In July, Jamal Hart, and his brother, an unnamed minor, were charged with the murders and remain in custody. Judge Ive Swan held a pretrial hearing Monday in Superior Court. Bason, who was called by Swan to appear in court for the hearing, was accompanied by attorney, Alan Smith, whom he hired to represent him in the personnel dispute with Drue, and a related matter.
Bason told Swan that the case was no longer his, and that Smith would address the judges questions. Smith said Bason was on leave without pay. He also said Bason had a conflict of interest in the case, because an attorney in Smiths law firm is representing the minor in the case.
Bason said this week that he had asked that the case be re-assigned in August when he left. This case had gone on for four months with no one working on it, he said. I had instructed the acting chief to have someone take the case, and my requests were ignored.
Smith said Thursday that the issue was further complicated because Bason, after caring for his mother, subsequently had some health problems of his own, for which he had submitted medical leave slips from his physicians.
Swan was displeased with the turn of events Monday. With no one apparently taking on the prosecutors role, Swan ordered someone from the Justice Department to take the case. Douglas Dick, acting criminal division chief, was called from another courtroom. Swan asked Dick if he would take the case, and Dick said he would.
Despite this, Dick said Wednesday that he would not be prosecuting the case. He said he accepted the assignment because someone had to represent the DOJ. Bason is still assigned as the prosecuting attorney on the case, Dick said, adding that he would contact Drue, who is off island, for comment on the situation.
He said he could not elaborate without Drues comments. As of Thursday, Drue had not contacted the Source.
Bason is very upset about the turn of events. I feel personally about all my cases, he said. Indeed, Bason attended an informal memorial this summer at the bus stop on Veterans Drive where the two men were gunned down. Saman Dashti and Samantha Roberts, brother and sister of the slain men had returned to the island, a year after the murders, for the event.
Bason said this week that Drue is penalizing him because he was the whistleblower to federal agents investigating a pyramid scheme in the DOJ offices. I witnessed a crime taking place, Bason said, and I reported it to the federal authorities.
That case is currently being investigated by number of government agencies, but no official report has been released.
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