Man jailed for failing to pay $1.5M court-ordered debt

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

A man is ex­pect­ed to spend 14 days in prison for fail­ing to clear an al­most $1.5 mil­lion court-or­dered debt. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Marc An­tho­ny Hadeed was held on a com­mit­tal war­rant for con­tempt of court af­ter sur­ren­der­ing to the po­lice, late last week. 

Hadeed’s de­ten­tion was based on a case brought by a woman he had a busi­ness arrange­ment with. 

The woman died while the case was still pend­ing and the ad­min­is­tra­trix of her es­tate was al­lowed to con­tin­ue it in 2021. 

When the case came up for tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son in May 2023, a con­sent or­der was en­tered. 

Un­der the or­der, Hadeed agreed to pay $285,680.07 for breach of con­tract, US$47,000 for loss of rent, $844,600 in resti­tu­tion, and $4,500 in spe­cial dam­ages. 

He was al­so or­dered to pay $104,130.02 in in­ter­est and $109,502.80 in le­gal costs. 

Hadeed failed to make the pay­ment as agreed, and the woman’s lawyers from JD Sel­l­i­er and Com­pa­ny pur­sued a con­tempt of court ap­pli­ca­tion. 

In Feb­ru­ary last year, Jus­tice Wil­son up­held the ap­pli­ca­tion and or­dered that Hadeed serve 14 days in prison for his non-com­pli­ance. 

She gave him the op­tion of avoid­ing the prison term by clear­ing the debt in three months. 

Hadeed ap­pealed the con­tempt or­der. 

In Jan­u­ary, Ap­pel­late Judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er struck out Hadeed’s ap­peal clear­ing the way for the com­mit­tal war­rant to be ex­e­cut­ed as Hadeed did not ob­tain a stay of it. 

Hadeed sur­ren­dered last week and was tak­en to the Gold­en Grove State Prison to serve the sen­tence.