Senate Committee on Ethical Conduct Reduces Blyden's Punishment for Flouting Covid-19 Protocols

Senators who make up the Senate Committee on Ethical Conduct today plan to introduce a reduced set of sanctions than what they had previously agreed upon as the fitting punishment for Senator Marvin Blyden's flouting of the V.I. Dept. of Health's Covid-19 protocols. Mr. Blyden in September attended an event two days after testing positive for Covid-19, and after being advised by the V.I. Dept. of Health to quarantine.

A V.I. Dept. of Justice-led case against the senator has been set for April after a judge found probable cause to charge Mr. Blyden with exposure in public place while infected with a contagious disease.

According to people with intimate knowledge of the original sanctions that the committee had already presented to key lawmakers, the committee had voted to suspend Mr. Blyden from the Senate for four months and strip him of his Senate majority leader position.

But the committee is prepared to present the full Senate with a resolution that includes a reduced suspension, though Mr. Blyden is still expected to be stripped of the majority leader position.

The resolution will be presented to the full Senate during today's session where they will also vote on the matter.

Senator Milton Potter, chairman of the five-member Committee on Ethical Conduct, acknowledged Wednesday that changes were made without providing details on the final sanctions. He said "the process was still very much in flux, and until the final resolution was officially presented to the full body, we still had an opportunity to look at it, deliberate, make changes if necessary, so we considered the process to still be in flux."

Members of the CEC include Mr. Potter, and Senators Kenneth Gittens, Kurt Vialet, Carla Joseph, and Dwayne M. DeGraff.

Mr. Potter described being the chair of the committee as a "no-win" situation, stating that whatever decision the CEC came up with, some people would be unsatisfied. "I don't think there's a possible sanction that's going to be 100 percent embraced by this community. I don't think the position that I am in as the chair of this committee... it's like a no-win situation. But I think that throughout the process the objective of the committee, if I can speak for them, was to really give Senator Blyden the appropriate due process to have a fair hearing."