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Vol. 33, Issue 15 Queens/long Island/Bronx/Manhattan April 14-20, 2022
New York State Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin who has been arrested and charged with
bribery and fraud for allegedly directing state funds to a group controlled by a real estate developer
who was a campaign donor, leaves a courthouse in New York, U.S., April 12, 2022. REUTERS/
Dieu-Nalio Chery
By Nelson A. King
Caribbean American New York
City Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams,
a candidate for Governor of
New York in June’s Democratic Primary,
on Tuesday strongly criticized
Gov. Kathy Hochul after she accepted
the resignation of Lieutenant
Gov. Brian Benjamin on indictment
of bribery and related offenses.
Damian Williams, another Caribbean
American, who is the United
States Attorney for the Southern
District of New York, announced
earlier on Tuesday that Benjamin,
the son of a Guyanese mother and
Jamaican father, was charged with
bribery, honest services wire fraud
and conspiracy to commit those
offenses, “based on his use of his
official authority while a New York
state senator to direct a state-funded
grant to an organization controlled
by a real estate developer (‘CC-1’) in
exchange for campaign contributions
made and procured by CC-1”.
Benjamin, 45, who resigned
shortly after prosecutors unsealed
the indictment, pleaded not guilty
at a short appearance in Federal
District Court in Lower Manhattan.
He was released on a US$250,000
Continued on Page 3
By Bert Wilkinson
At various times in recent years,
critics had worried about the relatively
low profile of the Caribbean
reparations movement, wondering
if it had gone moribund but a
flurry of activity across the region
in the past eight weeks has clearly
renewed faith in the process.
The first signs of a renewed
commitment to up the ante on
former European slave trading
nations emerged as Britain was
preparing to send Prince William
and his wife, Kate, to the Caribbean
on a so-called royal charm
tour of three northern CARICOM
countries-Belize, Jamaica and The
Bahamas.
The touring party was bombarded
with calls for Britain to
pay reparations to the survivors of
the brutal slave trade and to also
apologize for the UK’s role, its contemptuous
decision to compensate
slave owners-not survivors-for
their loss and for the paltry level
off assistance London offered to
Caribbean nations at independence.
Add to that, calls by regional
leaders including Prime Minister
Mia Mottley of Barbados and
Continued on Page 12
Williams criticizes Hochul amid
Benjamin’s resignation, indictment
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