Married Man Sentenced to One Year After Illegally Remarrying

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – A Bahamian man who married a woman while still legally married to his first wife has been jailed for a year. 

Thirty-six-year-old Lavardo Ferguson pleaded guilty to entering into a fictitious marriage and making a false declaration for marriage at his arraignment before Senior Magistrate Carolyn Vogt-Evans.

The security guard got a marriage license on February 2, 2022 after he falsely claimed that he was a bachelor.

Before he wed Christina Dunkley, a Jamaican national, on March 10, 2022, Ferguson once again falsely claimed that he was single.

Ferguson’s first marriage was discovered after he went to the National Insurance Board with his new wife to get her an NIB card.

After NIB officials said that Ferguson was still married to Rokell Brown, the recently wed couple went to the Registrar General’s Department.

A search revealed that Ferguson was still married to Brown, whom he wed on October 11, 2011. Brown is also Jamaican.

Ferguson told the court that he was under the mistaken impression that his marriage to Brown had ended.

According to him, a year after their nuptials, Brown’s lawyer served him with divorce papers, which he signed.

He said he hadn’t seen or heard from Brown since signing the papers.

In sentencing, Vogt-Evans said that Ferguson’s actions couldn’t be taken lightly given the state of immigration in the country.

She said, “Marriages of this kind, allows persons to bypass the proper channels of their entry and residence into The Bahamas.”