Former Barbados Member of Parliament and cabinet minister Donville Inniss has reportedly been transferred from a federal prison in the United States to a county jail to serve out the remaining few months of his two year sentence for bribery and money laundering.
Starcom Network News understands the former Minister of Industry and Commerce is also scheduled to appear in US court later this month for a hearing to determine whether he will be deported from the U.S.
In April of 2021, Mr. Inniss was sentenced to 24 months in US federal prison after being convicted in January of 2020.
Early on the morning of July 30th2021 he surrendered to U.S prison authorities to begin serving his sentence at a federal prison in Texas.
He had been required by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to surrender by 2 p.m. that day.
The former St. James South MP, who has been a U.S. legal permanent resident and who resided in Tampa, Florida, and Barbados, was convicted of two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Non-US citizens convicted of felonies are subject to losing their residency status and being deported to the land of their birth.
A statement posted on the website of the New York Eastern District of the US Justice Department outlined the circumstances of Mr. Inniss’s conviction.
It stated that following a one-week trial he was convicted for laundering bribe payments from a Barbados-based insurance company through banks on Long Island. The Court also ordered Mr. Inniss to pay more than 36 thousand US dollars in forfeiture.
Mark J. Lesko, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York of the US Justice Department in announcing the sentence stated that in accepting bribes and laundering the payments through banks on Long Island, Mr. Inniss not only abused the public trust that was placed in him by the people of Barbados, but also stained the U.S. banking system with the proceeds of what Mr. Lesko said was his corrupt scheme.
The Acting U.S. Attorney added that the sentence reflected the seriousness of the crimes.
