Margaret Crane Trial

[Ulysses G.]

I do wonder if Pim would really go to the US with "homeland security" hassles. It may be best for her to avoid the US as Geri is suing everyone connected to Daniel including Maggie!

I will pass this on if I have any contact with her or her freinds. Not sure how serious she was anyway.

[Maejo Man]

I do wonder if Pim would really go to the US with "homeland security" hassles. It may be best for her to avoid the US as Geri is suing everyone connected to Daniel including Maggie!

Since when has a civil action (if there is indeed one) been in breach if homeland security issues. Jeeze you yanks get paranoid sometimes

[hawaiianeyes]

I do wonder if Pim would really go to the US with "homeland security" hassles. It may be best for her to avoid the US as Geri is suing everyone connected to Daniel including Maggie!

Since when has a civil action (if there is indeed one) been in breach if homeland security issues. Jeeze you yanks get paranoid sometimes

No link there between Geri's suit (duely filed and listed on Hawaii Judiaciary site) and the current, sometimes overzealous, homeland security atmosphere. On the other hand, if the feds are still independently looking at GPD for various felony fraud cases etc, then monies linked to him may be tainted and those attempting to move them through the US could be scrutinized.

[Crow Boy]

This thread has been reopened - as I type the verdict should be handed down. The result will be posted and members are welcome to discuss. Please note, recently in the CM forum there have been some unwarranted remarks between members. This has resulted in one long standing member being banned from the forum and several others sent non official warnings.

The rules of the forum are clear - if you don't know them or they have drifted off into the dim recesses of your memory I strongly suggest you click on this this link to the Thai Visa forum rules before you start posting.

If you have any questions re the rules or moderation send a PM to one of the moderators - do NOT post it in the open forum.

This case is important to a range of people not the least of whom is Margaret Crane. Please do not force it to be closed because of inappropriate comments.

regards

Crow Boy

Moderating Team

Thai Visa

[sylviex]

Do we have a verdict ?

[hawaiianeyes]

Do we have a verdict ?

I received an email a few hours ago from a fellow that went to court today. He said that Margaret did not come to court today and that "sentencing has been postponed" until the 11th.

HE

[p1p]

Edit to the above - Court sources today report that the sentencing was postponed until the 20th, not the 11th as reported above. This is believed to be because behind-the-scenes negotiations are ongoing between Thai and Canadian governments.

I am therefore closing this thread until there is more genuine news to report.

[Crow Boy]

Sentencing delayed in murder trial of cultish con man’s lover

Windsor News

Canadian accused in shooting death

Canwest News Service

Published: Tuesday, March 11, 2008

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Sentencing in the bizarre murder of a con man with cult-like appeal, killed by his lover of nearly 30 years, was inexplicably delayed Monday.

Observers in the northern Thailand courtroom looked as confused as court officials Monday, when sentencing proceedings for former Victoria resident Margaret Crane were delayed. Crane was convicted Feb. 29, but details about the proceedings are sketchy, including what plea she entered.

Crane was convicted in the July 2006 shooting death of Daniel George Dubie, the father of her six children, in a restaurant in Chiang Mai.

On Monday, court officials first directed people to a tiny courtroom for Crane’s sentencing, but neither judge nor prisoner was present. Then it emerged that Crane’s sentencing had been postponed to March 20.

The court gave no other information. It’s not known where Crane is currently being held.

The tumultuous relationship between Dubie and Crane — the two were never married — reached its end in Thailand when, after 28 years of following Dubie around the world and submitting to the con man’s schemes, Crane shot him.

Crane could face a firing squad if convicted.

The killing exposed a shocking saga involving a charismatic American with a cult-like allure who, over three decades, duped dozens of people and seduced scores of women. Dubie was known as a con man who could draw on his charm or turn to cruelty.

“I would describe him as a classic fraudster, a swindler with an uncanny ability to capture the minds of individuals who weren’t as strong as he was — a David Koresh-type figure,” FBI Special Agent Dan McLaughlin has said. He investigated Dubie in Hawaii in 2001.

Brian Fujiuchi, a police detective in Hawaii when Dubie was being investigated for a cult he operated in the 1980s, has said: “I just couldn’t believe these people believed he was Jesus Christ and were handing over their life savings.”

Crane and Dubie’s bizarre life played out from an oceanside mansion in Hawaii to an isolated cabin in Nova Scotia — with stops in Toronto, Montreal and Niagara-on-the-Lake.

© The Windsor Star 2008

[p1p]

I have just received the following news:

At CM Criminal Court late this morning, Margaret Crane from Canada was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for the shooting murder of her long term American lover, Daniel Dubie. Crane had pleaded guilty at a February trial to shooting Dubie, a 'cult style' figure based in Hawaii, in Sridornchai Rd outside the Whole Earth restaurant in July 2006.

What is thought to have been the lightest sentence ever imposed in Thailand for murder by a foreigner had been increased "from the norm", said the 2 judges, because she used her own gun and bullets, but then reduced because of her guilty plea. It is not yet known whether the (approx) 16 months she has spent in custody already will be counted as part of the sentence.

"I'm very happy!" she told half a dozen western friends and supporters from the holding cells under the court rooms at Mae Rim. She declined interviews by the small number of journalists present, but handed a short note to one who was writing for her home city newspaper in Canada. Her eldest daughter, fathered by Dubie, sells advertising for the paper.

[Pantip]

I think this thread can now be closed until Margaret’s memoirs are published, only then will us mere mortals find out the sordid but fascinating details of this case.

[Crow Boy]

reuters link

Canadian gets 3-1/2 years in Thai jail for cult murder

Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:58am GMT

By Panumet Tanraksa

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters) - A Canadian woman was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in a Thai jail on Thursday for killing her American partner, who claimed be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and faced a spate of fraud charges in Hawaii.

Margaret Crane, 50, got two years for killing George Patrick Dubie, 56, after a quarrel at a restaurant in the northern city of Chiang Mai in 2006 and 1-1/2 years for possessing and carrying a pistol in public.

"The court views that the defendant committed the crime as charged, but did it in a rage after being provoked, pressured and beaten," Judge Thanakorn Pusayapaiboon said as he read out the verdict.

"Therefore the sentence is lower than what is stated in the law," he said, adding her confession helped halve the murder penalty to two years in jail.

Canadian newspapers described the pair as a 21st century "Bonnie and Clyde" -- an American couple and gang notorious for their robberies on banks, small stores and gas stations in the central United States in the mid-1930s.

Crane told the police after she was arrested that Dubie -- who claimed to be a part-time CNN correspondent and to have worked for the United Nations in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami -- was abusive and hit her and their six children.

Their relationship worsened when he became involved with a Thai woman, Thai newspapers reported.

Crane told the court she used a revolver she took from him during a scuffle, but did not know how many shots she fired. A police forensic report said only one bullet was found in his body.

Crane, who never married Dubie but travelled with him across Canada, to Hawaii and Thailand over 28 years, was also dubbed by Canadian newspapers as his "most devoted disciple".

Crane told the court she went to see Dubie at a restaurant to get cash he promised to give her and their six children during a stay in Thailand, but he abused her verbally and said their youngest daughter was not his.

FBI Special Agent Dan McLaughlin, who investigated Dubie in Hawaii in 2001, called him "a David Koresh-type figure" -- the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect who was killed in a fire in a 1993 ranch raid along with 53 adults and 21 children.

"I would describe him as a classic fraudster, a swindler with an uncanny ability to capture the minds of individuals who weren't as strong as he was," Canada's National Post quoted McLaughlin as saying in a March 2007 report.

Brian Fujiuchi, a detective in Hawaii when police investigated a cult Dubie ran in the 1980s, told the National Post Dubie brainwashed people into believing "he was Jesus Christ and were handing over their life savings."

Crane's Thai lawyer said he was satisfied with the sentence on the murder charge, but would appeal on the firearm penalty as his client did not own or carry the pistol to the restaurant.

(Additional Reporting and writing by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Michael Battye)

© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved.