ACQUITTAL FOR SINGER IN TONI BRAXTON CASE: Trina Johnson-Finn free after three months in a Suriname jail.(June 10, 2009)
*Trina Johnson-Finn, the celebrity impersonator accused of trying to fool concert goers in Suriname into thinking she was Toni Braxton, was acquitted Tuesday following three months in jail awaiting a verdict.
Judge Robby Rodrigues said it wasn't clear whether Johnson-Finn knew that concert-goers had been led to believe she was really Braxton, reports the Associated Press. The Las Vegas entertainer was booed offstage and pelted with beer cans by a crowd of about 3,000 people in February when they realized she was not the six-time Grammy winner best known for the hit, "Un-break My Heart." Some had paid as much as $53 per ticket. "We'd like to once again express our apologies to the people of Suriname who lost their ... earnings at the hands of those who deceived them as well as us," husband Raymond Finn said in a statement. "I'm delighted with the judge's decision," Johnson-Finn told reporters outside the courtroom. "It was hard dealing with the situation knowing I was innocent. But now I just want to go back home and hug my family, my husband. I haven't seen them for so long." Defense attorney Kathleen Brandon said that part of the problem is that Surinamese are not familiar with the business of celebrity impersonating. Concert promoter Angel Ventura and his girlfriend, Signet Sampson, are expected to stand trial in July. Ventura initially said that Johnson-Finn knew about the scam from the beginning, according to police, but he later retracted that allegation.
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