OMAR COLLYMORE FINALLY GETS LEGAL REPRESENTATION

Omar Collymore-Best, the husband of Simone Campbell who has been accused of plotting her murder has finally secured legal representation after weeks of being unable to secure one. Sources say Jeff Miller of the Jamaica Tallawahs will represent Collymore but will be guided by a shadow attorney behind the scene. Jeff Miller has been no stranger to scandals as he was ousted from Barbados’ cricket team …see article at the end.. Miller is said to be a long time friend of Omar Collymore’s mother, Andrea Osbourne. Omar Collymore will return to court on April 4.

The Barbados Cricket Association announced on Saturday via a press release that it has “agreed to a mutual separation” with chief executive Jeff Miller after he served in the post for just three and a half months.

Miller, 55, reportedly faced legal issues back home in the United States. The Barbados Today reported on October 3 that Miller pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony charge of grand theft in Florida on July 25. He was sentenced to 12 years’ probation for pleading guilty to grand theft. The charge carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Three other felony charges stemming from an initial arrest in April 2009 – mortgage fraud, fraudulent use of an ID and uttering a forged instrument or check – were not pursued, according to court documents obtained by ESPNcricinfo.

According to the BCA press release, Miller was appointed to his role on June 23 but told officials less than a month later that he needed official leave from his position to attend to “an urgent personal medical matter overseas.” When contacted by ESPNcricinfo, neither the BCA nor Miller would confirm or deny a connection between the charges and him leaving his chief executive position. A phone message left with Miller’s lawyer, Khurram Wahid, also went unreturned.

As part of his probation sentence, Miller was due to serve two years of community control, a supervised form of house arrest. Court filings show that an affidavit was filed in Miami-Dade County Court on September 9 for a violation of probation.

Miller stayed active in the cricket community in various other capacities while his case was ongoing. He served as president of the South Florida Cricket Association for six terms, and remained in the position through 2010 while the felony charges were still pending. He was also employed as the vice president of operations and tournament director for Cricket Council USA, helping run the annual US Open $100,000 club cricket tournament at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida, as well as various other lead-in satellite tournaments in New York and other cities.

Miller went on to become a founding member of the Friends of Central Broward Regional Park in 2011, a group which helped facilitate more cricket games to be played at the $70 million cricket stadium facility, the only ICC certified ODI stadium in the USA. Miller served as executive director of the group and also played an instrumental role in the logistical planning and execution of the Twenty20 series played between West Indies and New Zealand at the stadium in 2012 during New Zealand’s Caribbean tour.

His administrative reach also extends to Asia. Miller was involved in bringing four USA based players – Steven Taylor, Ricardo Powell, Adam Sanford and Jermaine Lawson – to Karachi, Pakistan in October 2012 for a pair of exhibition matches between a World XI All-Star team and a Pakistan XI. They were the first international games played in the country since the Sri Lanka team bus was the target of a terrorist attack in Lahore in March 2009.

A well-known figure in US cricket, Miller is originally from Barbados but moved to New York at age 18. He eventually played for the USA national team, opening the bowling for USA at the 1986 ICC Trophy in England. It was USA’s best performance at a World Cup Qualifier as they went 7-1 in group play with their only loss coming to the Netherlands. USA missed out on the semi-finals due to the net run rate tiebreaker despite finishing on equal points with both Netherlands and Bermuda. He took eight wickets in seven games, with one profile stating that he took a hat-trick in USA’s opening game win over Canada.

After finishing his representative career, Miller served as a USACA board member and moved to Florida in the late 1980s where he became involved with the SFCA, first as treasurer before later becoming president. He was also a USACA chairman of selectors in 2005 and part of the local organising committee which pushed for a cricket stadium to be built in South Florida in the early 2000s in the hope it would result in receiving a bid to host games during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. The World Cup bid failed, but the stadium was eventually built and opened in 2008.