Embattled Minister Lee says he’s not resigning

Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

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Em­bat­tled Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says he in­tends to ap­peal a re­cent High Court rul­ing in the on­go­ing le­gal pro­ceed­ings against him, in­sist­ing he has not been found guilty of any of­fence and has no in­ten­tion of step­ping down from his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio.

Lee’s po­si­tion comes amid calls from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for him to re­sign or for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­move him from the Cab­i­net while the le­gal mat­ter con­tin­ues.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Lee said the court’s de­ci­sion con­cerned a le­gal pro­ce­dure.

“I want to be un­equiv­o­cal: I have not been found guilty of any of­fence. No court has de­ter­mined that the al­le­ga­tions against me have been proven,” he said.

The charges against Lee stem from the im­por­ta­tion of a lux­u­ry Mer­cedes-Benz G63 AMG in 2019. He was ac­cused of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­spir­ing with busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi to de­fraud the State of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es and du­ties.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­lege that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship of the ve­hi­cle, val­ued at more than $2 mil­lion, to ben­e­fit from par­lia­men­tary tax ex­emp­tions. The al­leged tax loss­es com­prised $293,094.02 in Val­ue Added Tax, $298,650 in mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax and $824,548.62 in cus­toms du­ties.

Lee and Leong Poi were charged in Sep­tem­ber 2022 and both de­nied the al­le­ga­tions.

In April 2025, fol­low­ing a four-day pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry, Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion by the de­fence and dis­charged both men. The mag­is­trate ruled that the pros­e­cu­tion had failed to present suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to send the mat­ter to the High Court for tri­al.

How­ev­er, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard sub­se­quent­ly pur­sued a pro­ce­dure to have the mat­ter re­in­stat­ed. Both men were re­ar­rest­ed in Oc­to­ber 2025 af­ter a High Court judge is­sued war­rants for their ar­rest and com­mit­tal for tri­al.

Lee lat­er chal­lenged the pro­ce­dure through ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ceed­ings, ar­gu­ing that the le­gal pro­vi­sions used were no longer in force and that he was de­nied an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard be­fore the war­rant was is­sued.

But i a rul­ing de­liv­ered on No­vem­ber 4, High Court Jus­tice West­min James dis­missed Lee’s chal­lenge, find­ing that the DPP had act­ed with­in his le­gal au­thor­i­ty. The rul­ing cleared the way for the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings to con­tin­ue, al­though it did not de­ter­mine Lee’s guilt or in­no­cence.

In his lat­est state­ment, Lee said in April 2025, Charles had de­ter­mined that the pros­e­cu­tion’s ev­i­dence was in­her­ent­ly weak and that, even tak­en at its high­est, a prop­er­ly di­rect­ed ju­ry could not prop­er­ly con­vict him.

He al­so main­tained that the DPP’s ap­pli­ca­tion was made on the fi­nal day per­mit­ted for such an ap­pli­ca­tion, with­out no­ti­fy­ing him or giv­ing him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard.

Lee said his at­tor­neys had ad­vised him that there were sub­stan­tial grounds for an ap­peal against the lat­est High Court de­ci­sion, with good prospects of suc­cess. He said he had ac­cept­ed that ad­vice and in­tend­ed to pur­sue the ap­pro­pri­ate ap­pel­late reme­dies.

Lee al­so cau­tioned against po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary sur­round­ing the mat­ter, say­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials should be sub­ject to scruti­ny and ac­count­abil­i­ty, but that scruti­ny must be ground­ed in facts.

“A pro­ce­dur­al rul­ing should nev­er be pre­sent­ed as a find­ing of crim­i­nal guilt,” Lee said.

The Hous­ing Min­is­ter reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to serv­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, say­ing his fo­cus re­mained on ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s hous­ing needs, ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for home­own­er­ship and de­liv­er­ing im­prove­ments in peo­ple’s lives.

Lee al­so thanked his fam­i­ly, col­leagues, con­stituents and mem­bers of the pub­lic who had con­tin­ued to sup­port him.

He said he had con­fi­dence in the ju­di­cial process and would pur­sue every law­ful av­enue avail­able to him, adding that his record of ser­vice and com­mit­ment to the coun­try would not be de­fined by al­le­ga­tions or po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary.