A Jamaican court has ordered two banks to reveal the transaction history of accounts owned by accused fraudster Jean Ann Panton.
Panton is named in a lawsuit against Stocks and Securities Limited, which is the investment firm that managed Usain Bolt‘s investment portfolio where U$12 million went missing from. The sprint legend and producer is trying to recover his missing money, which dwindled down to $12,000 over a four-year period.
On Wednesday, judge Cresensia Brown Beckford granted the order for two unnamed banks to provide Bolt’s company, WellJen, with the transaction history of the bank accounts held by Panton. The company accuses Panton of moving assets out of the accounts.
The latest development comes after Panton seemingly reverted her statement given to police and attorneys late last year, where she detailed how she stole millions of funds from almost three dozen investors.
However, she had not taken responsibility for funds taken from Bolt, which were originally lodged at the company from around 2012.
Bolt’s attorneys have previously said that Panton had approached them to borrow money from them to pay back other investors, and she was the one who led them to find out that monies were missing. She had also detailed in her previous statements how she came to steal the money – by writing fake emails giving authorization to take either money or shares from the account, which she encased with the help of unsuspecting bearers.
Some withdrawals shared with the media showed that she authorized the withdrawal, and there was no secondary manager or executive overlooking her transactions.
In addition, she carried on her alleged fraudulent behavior over a number of years undetected because she claimed that she had provided doctored statements that fooled investors as to the true state of their accounts.
This week however, Panton, in her defense against a claim by another investor Jean Forde which names her and nine others, including the founder of SSL, Hugh Croskery, claimed that she had confessed because of a financial inducement by Croskery.
It’s a bombshell claim as Panton previously didn’t name any other actors in the fraud, and Croskery had denied any knowledge or involvement in the fraud.
“In trepidation, the second defendant (Panton) says that the background of the alleged confession was premised, on an offer made by the third defendant (Croskery) on behalf of the first defendant (SSL). The said offer was an inducement and the statement would not have been made otherwise,” her reply said.
Croskery’s lawyer, Peter Champagnie, has not filed a reply, but he is quoted by the Gleaner as saying that his client’s instruction and Panton’s remarks are not in accord and that he’ll hold any further remarks as the matter is before the court.
