By Grace Q. Bryant
The Headquarters of the Liberia National Police has charged and sent to Court Maria Morgan Luyken who was guilty of human trafficking recently at the Criminal Court B and 5 others for allegedly duping and stealing USD $ 250, 000.00 from some members of the organization in the Capitol By-Pass. The defendants are Maria Morgan Luyken, former Representative Aspirant for Montserrado District #6; Reginald Taylor, Bismarck Appleton, Amos Benjamin, Ralph Johnson and Meattia Yancy.
The defendants were charged with the crimes of Criminal Conspiracy, Theft of Property and Fraud which are in violations of chapters 10 and 15 sections 10.2, 15.51 and 15.70 of the revised Penal Code of Liberia.
According to the complaint filed by Madela Zayzay and others in which they alleged that about 500 members were duped out of the amount of USD$ 250,000.00 by way of a networking program through a purported organization, namely the “CIRCLE OF LIFE FETLOWSHIP”.
The complaint further revealed that about 500 members joined the organization in separate months in the year 2020 and that all of them registered with the amount of USD 500.00 and at the end of every 4 to 6 weeks, the organization was obligated to pay the amount of USD 2, 000.00 to each member based upon their unanimous agreement.
The complaint investigation explained that the General Overseer of the organization Defendent Maria Morgan Luyken in collaboration with his cohorts or accomplices, defendants Taylor , Appleton, Benjamin, Johnson and Yancy criminally conspired and breached the initial agreement made to the detriment of members.
The police investigation revealed that the defendants voluntarily admitted being the official members of the purported organization.
The police also established that the organization is not officially registered with the requisite government Agencies of Liberia as a business entity therefore the defendants admitted depriving some of the victims of their benefits.
According to the police, some of the victims provided receipts which were given to them by the officials of the organization namely, defendants Luyken, Taylor, Appleton, Benjamin and Yancy in order to authenticate the claims.