By PAUL HENRY, Observer staff reporter editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, June 02, 2009

ARGUING that he was broke and would be homeless if booted from the posh $40 million townhouse he now occupies at Armour Heights, St Andrew, former Cash Plus boss Carlos Hill was yesterday pitied by the courts and allowed – on humanitarian grounds – to remain in the house for 14 days until he secures a place to stay.

Hill had argued in vain for an application to prevent his eviction from the property which has been put up for sale, but after refusing the application, Justice Roy Anderson asked attorney Hugh Wildman – the man seeking Hill’s eviction and who is the trustee in bankruptcy and provisional liquidator for Cash Plus – if he would allow Hill access to the house for humanitarian reasons.

Yesterday morning Hill and his attorney, Yvette Sterling Fajolu, took to the Supreme Court seeking the injunction in a frantic last-minute bid to prevent the forced removal after bailiffs and police officers turned up at the 94 East Armour Heights house with a truck to enforce a 30-day eviction notice issued by the court.

Fajolu argued in her failed bid for the injunction that Hill did not have the money to secure new residence and that he had security concerns as he has received several death threats.

The lawyer added that the notoriety of Hill’s case limited the choices of landlords who would rent or lease to him.

But Wildman countered, telling the court that Hill was in no position to apply for an injunction because he was no longer the owner of the property, and that he had become a “squatter” when he failed to honour the eviction notice that expired on Saturday.

Furthermore, Wildman said that his office had made several attempts to contact Hill since last week to inform him of his obligation to vacate the premises, but to no avail.

Anderson sided with Wildman and refused the application.

Cash Plus and its subsidiaries were placed in liquidation by the Supreme Court for their properties to be sold in order for depositors and creditors of the investment scheme to get back some of the money they lost when the pyramid scheme, the heart of the Cash Plus operations, crashed last year.

As a result of the collapse of the billion-dollar scheme, Hill, his brother Bertram Hill and chief financial officer Peter Wilson were arrested and slapped with fraud charges. They have since been released from jail on multi-million dollar bail bonds and are to appear in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court in July.

The other properties – a townhouse on Cherry Drive and another on Norbrook Drive; an apartment at Waterworks Mews and a property in Kencot all in St Andrew; Mainland International at March Pen in St Catherine and a property on Old Harbour Road, St Catherine – have been put up for sale by order of the court.

Cash Plus, which has been in liquidation since early last year, has also been sued by several depositors.