This morning videos of an Orange Walk Town councillor partying with reckless abandon emerged and quickly went viral on Facebook.
The allegation was that the videos of the hard-partying PUP Town Councillor Haresh Vaswani were captured recently - during the time of COVID restriction and he is seen in large social gatherings without a mask.
But Vaswani - who was convicted for a curfew violation in April - says it's all a pack of lies intended to wrongly defame and discredit him.
He says one of the videos is two years old, and another is from 2019.
But, there are also pictures of partying - and many sources insist those date back to mid - November.
All this negative exposure has caused some headache to the town mayor, Kevin Bernard. First, when we sent him the videos we had received, he told us via text that this constitutes, quote "totally irresponsible behavior."
But when we spoke to him via Zoom teleconference half an hour later, he said that he had since confirmed that the videos were, in fact, all captured before the COVID pandemic:
Kevin Bernard, Mayor, OW
"While I would say that I find no excuse for anybody, I know Haresh is a young individual loves to party, have friends, but I as the mayor has always encourage everybody do things right and he has confirmed to me that these are all old videos of parties he has had prior to February 2020. But I've spoken to the councilor and I have asked him despite the fact that are old videos - I've ask him if he can relieve himself of all duties assigned to him as a councilor for the time being until we can get this matter properly cleared up which he has voluntarily accepted to do so. Like I said it is not a quick reaction to the videos, but basically for us to be able to get clarity on the matter."
Jules Vasquez
"Now you feel that in heat his story is accurate and he is blameless, well then it's unfair to take a sanction out against him as you are doing. It seems like you are saying that you believe him, but intuitively you sense that there may be something else and to avoid political exposure you are hedging your bets and relieving him of his portfolio."
Kevin Bernard, Mayor, OW
"It's not necessarily that point. Like I said I've spoken to Haresh, I know him very well and he will not say anything to me that is not so. He is genuine when it comes to that matter and he will not lie to me. But like I said politics is perception. Like I said I cannot tell you if there is any future videos I can't answer to that. But to give him the benefit of the doubt and us as a council we just have ask him to temporarily and voluntarily step aside relief himself from duties as a councilor that has been assign to him until we can get more clarity into this matter."
Jules Vasquez
"But mayor sorry to argue, but if you say you believe the man and he has been clear, then you have all the clarity you need. I've also seen text messages from him into a group saying that on November 14th they are going to have a bash of mythic proportions and curfew be damned because PUP will be in power."
Kevin Bernard, Mayor, OW
"Like I said I can't answer to what is in a chat group that I have no part of. All I can say is that as the mayor if any such thing would come out I would only caution him to desist and to ensure that we are doing the right thing."
Well, pretty quickly, Mayor Bernard went from erring on the side of caution to siding with the councillor! He sent us a voice note minutes after that interview rescinding his rescission of the Vaswani's portfolio and said, there's no offence:
Voice of: Kevin Bernard, Mayor, OW
"As a follow up to my interview I manage to get a hold of the councilor once again and have proven that the video images that were displayed were all images prior to February 2020 and as such we have taken the decision to rescind the previous decision that Haresh volunteered and I have spoken to the councilor and so he will resume his responsibility as is normal. However, we have also advise him to ensure that none of these incidents occur during this time as well."
A release from the council says, quote, "after getting the time stamp of those original videos…Councilor Vaswani…will continue to retain his portfolio assigned to him by the Mayor. This is on the basis that all those 3 videos were taken prior to February 2020 and dates way back to March 2018. The statement calls it an act of Cyber Bullying and blames the UDP.
Subsequent text messages sent to us as screenshots from a chat group show a very clear attempt by the persons involve to orchestrate what has every appearance of a cover up.
