Four Trinidadians who came to St. Vincent and the Grenadines to learn to plant marijuana were each ordered on Thursday to pay a fine of EC$25,000 or spend a year in prison even as the 240lbs of marijuana they harvested will be destroyed.
Senior Magistrate Colin John order the men — Damian Baptiste aka Tall Boy, 29, Shaqkeim Bolah aka Myng, 21, Isaiah Phillips aka Izee, 23, and Jayron Abraham aka Fat Boy, 21 — to pay the fine forthwith.
They were initially arraigned at the Serious Offences Court on Oct. 7 on charges that they had the drug in their possession with intent to supply it to another at Petit Bordel on Oct. 3, the same day they allegedly had it in their possession for the purpose of drug trafficking.
They each pleaded “guilty with an explanation” to the charges during their arraignment at the Serious Offences Court on Oct.7.
Vincentian Tevin Matthews, of Petit Bordel, who was jointly charged that between Feb. 1 and May 4, at Petit Bordel, they conspired to traffic the drug, pleaded not guilty.
Matthews was granted bail and the Trinidadians were remanded in custody and the matter was disposed of on Thursday after a number of adjournments.
The prosecutor told the court that he was withdrawing the conspiracy charge against the accused.
Presenting the facts, Cato told the court that on Oct. 3, Inspector Dallaway of the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) led an operation that involved officers from the RRU, Narcotics Unit and Special Services Unit in the Petit Bordel mountains.
Early morning police operation
The officers arrived at 2 a.m. and Sergeants Huggins and John led their own parties into the mountain.
Around 5:30 a.m., while in the mountains, PC 650 Wickham saw a small open hut in which a man later identified as Abraham was met sleeping.
A search turned up nothing illegal on Abraham’s person or in the hut.
The officer became suspicious because of the men’s non-Vincentian accent and some of them stayed there within him while Wickham led another officer higher up the mountain.
There, they met a hut and shed located 15 to 20 feet apart with the other three defendants sleeping inside.
The officer woke the men up and also noticed that they also had non-Vincentian accents.
The men gave their names and nationalities.
The police noticed plant-like material resembling cannabis hanging from lines and on a tarpaulin on the ground.
There was also a white nylon sack with several transparent vacuum-sealed packages containing plant-like material resembling cannabis.
The men and the exhibited were taken to the Narcotics Base, where the cannabis was weighed and amounted to 108,960 grammes or 240lbs
The men told police that they were in St. Vincent for eight months, having been invited to the country by a Vincentian they had met on Facebook.
They said they had travelled from Trinidad to Union Island by boat then took the ferry from Union Island to Kingstown, before travelling by road to Petit Bordel on the northwest coast of St. Vincent.
The men told the police they bought marijuana seed from the man who had arranged their transportation from Kingstown to Petit Bordel and had planned to take the cannabis back to Trinidad by boat and sell it.
Bolah and Phillips had identity cards with them but the two other men had no form of identification.
The men were also been charged with immigration offences in relation to their illegal entry into St. Vincent and the Grenadines but Cato asked the court to issue a removal order after sentencing them on the drug charges.
Lawyer asks for suspended sentence
In mitigation, defence Counsel Grant Connell said the men were all farmers and had no previous convictions.
He said they were extremely remorseful for their action, adding that his instructions were that they had met a Vincentian young man on Facebook and expressed to them their interest in growing marijuana.
“They were invited to come to SVG to learn how to plant. They caught a boat because they could not afford the flight,” the lawyer told the court.
“They went to Petit Bordel, stayed until the crop was over and to fulfil the purpose they came here for,” Connell said.
The lawyer raised an issue with the quantity of cannabis listed in the charges, noting that the police had weighed the entire plant, most of which is stalks and stems.
Connell suggested that three-quarters of the weight was stick, saying, “at the most, stretching it, is 50lbs.
“Prosecutor, you agree with me?” he said to Cato, who responded, “No.”
Connell asked the court to impose a fine, saying, “we are short of money in the country”, and then deport the men.
“If the prosecution insists on a custodial sentence, impose it, suspend it and deport them,” Connell said.
On the issue of the weight, Cato said that the marijuana plants are weighed as they are.
“If the police officers are to take off the leaves off these stalks and weigh them, this same lawyer would say the police tampered with the exhibits and he is correct. that is the way the exhibits were found, that is the they have to remain,” the prosecutor said.
He said it is the discretion of the court to estimate the weight of the cannabis but noted that Connell was asking him to discount 190lbs as stalk.
“This has to be craziness,’ Cato said.
The prosecutor agreed that cannabis is locally grown but added that the court has to be mindful of the message it sends.
“Possession is still an offence,” he said.
Prosecution didn’t seek jail term
He told the court that he had no intention of asking that the four Trinidadians be sent to prison but said he did not agree that the court should impose a suspended sentence and deport them.
“What message are you sending to the public?” the prosecutor said.
Meanwhile, the magistrate said that he would give the cannabis half of the weight mentioned in the charge.
“Because on observation, it is not a true reflection of cannabis. I don’t get involved in cannabis otherwise than in this way. But as far as I know, you can’t smoke the stick or whatever,” said the magistrate who is a former commissioner of police.
Lawyer Carl Williams, a former prosecutor who was in the courtroom, noted that possession of cannabis seeds is legal.
The magistrate said that the street value of cannabis is EC$350 a pound.
After considering the aggravating and mitigating factors of the case, the magistrate arrived at a fine of EC$40,500. The final fine was EC$25,000 after the court deducted one-third for the early guilty plea and EC$2,000 for the time spent on remand.
“The fact that you are non-national and if you are given time to pay, we cannot guarantee that the order will be enforced, the same way you came here unannounced and unofficially you might leave unannounced and unofficially as well, because of that, I have to impose the fine forthwith,” the magistrate said.
He also issued a removal order for the men and ordered that the cannabis be destroyed.
Would anything change if these “Trinis” can show that they have Vincentian family connections? Anyway, why is the Vincentian government still prosecuting farmers for growing and trading marijuana? Seems like the police have more serious matters to solve.
I just do not get it. Police said they snatch $240 pounds. The judge said let’s leave it at 120 pounds. Street value $350.00 per pound. Fine is $25.000. $120 x $350.00 = $42.000
Why the judge didn’t say to the court let’s sell the weed. Take out $25.000. Give the boys $17.000 and tell them go home? You all forget SVG exporting weed?
These men can win this case. Three of them were found sleeping in a hut where plantlike material resembling cannabis was also found. Prove the weed was theirs, who did they buy it from seeing they are foreigners? One of the men was simply found sleeping in a hut. The most they can try to charge these men with could be vagrancy and hope to get a conviction.
I know when i am right , here we go ,Trinidadians coming to svg to ” learn ” how to grow ganga , but vincentian food farmers have to be thought how to grow food by Guyanese , is this not laughable ?? , contact the ministry guys
We can teach the world how to grow ganja ( we learned from jamaica ) our ministry can assist but is the twayaniese coming to teach us how to fish so the we dont have to import fish anymore ? , who will teach us about road building , will barbados teach us how to elect good government ?