He was accused of stealing more than $50,000 total in cash on seven different occasions from his real estate clients between December 2005 and April of this year. <\/p>\n
But Coley-Austin maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty. <\/p>\n
Coley-Austin, 42, of #7 Windsor Lane, reportedly owned a company called Island Home Construction, also known as Bahamian Style Home Construction Company.<\/p>\n
Authorities allege that he took deposits for home and lot packages from prospective buyers, but never delivered on any homes or lots.<\/p>\n
Seven persons, mostly women, were reportedly swindled out of thousands of dollars, police said. <\/p>\n
Police said that this type of white-collar crime has become a recurrent problem where people are preying on unsuspecting individuals, particularly women.<\/p>\n
It is alleged that Coley-Austin stole from Lacitus McGregor between Friday, January 30 and Monday April 3. <\/p>\n
It is also alleged that Coley-Austin stole $6,750 from Sherry Chartlon between Wednesday, December 7, and Tuesday, December 13.<\/p>\n
Sometime later, between Tuesday, January 24, and Monday, April 10, he also allegedly stole $6,250 from Ashondi Bethel by way of service.<\/p>\n
Between Friday, December 2, and Tuesday April 11, Coley-Austin swindled $3,000 from Yul A. Winters, police said.<\/p>\n
It is further alleged that between Friday, February 3, and Friday, March 24, Coley-Austin defrauded Kenneth Brown and Patricia Lightfoot of $3,070.<\/p>\n
Another ‘victim’, who reportedly bought into the real estate scheme, was Toarnovia Rolle, who reportedly paid Coley-Austin $4,000. <\/p>\n
Monique Robinson was also allegedly defrauded of $7,000, which she allegedly paid to Coley-Austin. <\/p>\n
Magistrate Susan Sylvester granted Coley-Austin $15,000 bail, with one surety.<\/p>\n
She also ordered that he report to the Wulff Road Police Station at 5pm Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. <\/p>\n
A preliminary inquiry has been scheduled for July 24.<\/p>\n
By: Royanne Forbes-Darville, The Bahama Journal<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bahamian businessman Byron Coley-Austin was charged in court on Thursday with seven counts of stealing by reason of service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}