Four men accused of the 2020 murder of Matthew Daly were acquitted on Tuesday, October 15, after Justice Rajiv Persad upheld a No Case submission from their defence attorneys, citing insufficient evidence.
The five-week trial, which began on September 16, 2024, ended with the judge directing the jury to return Not Guilty verdicts for Edward Crooke, Dajshon Benjamin, Micah Ormond, and K’Vawn Choucoutou.
Despite the acquittal, legal tension arose when the prosecution swiftly moved to appeal the verdict outside the High Court. Reports indicate that officers from the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force attempted to serve notices of appeal to the men moments after their release but this action was met with strong opposition from the defence team, who argued that the appeal documents had been prepared before the judge’s ruling. Attorneys Stephen Daniels, Valston Graham, and Valarie Stevens-Gordon advised their clients not to accept the notices, resulting in a standoff outside the courthouse.
The officers claimed the documents were timestamped after the judge’s decision, but the defence’s refusal to acknowledge service left the case in a state of legal uncertainty. As both sides consider their next moves, the acquitted men remain free, with no further legal matters pending for Crooke, Ormond, and Choucoutou. However, Benjamin remains in custody due to a separate case in which he has already pleaded guilty.
In October 2021 the Director of Public Prosecutions, Tiffany Scatliffe-Esprit, presented evidence before Magistrate Khadeen Palmer during a virtual hearing which included CCTV footage and cell phone data that she said linked the men to Daly’s murder. The prosecution had argued that the murder was a hit, with financial compensation paid to the four accused.
Before their release, Justice Persad urged the men to turn their lives around and contribute positively to society.