Trini to serve 3 year sentence

After he finishes serving a three-year-prison sentence here on a drug charge, Trinidadian Roger Noel’s legal woes will be far from over.{{more}}

Noel, who failed to pay a fine of $250,000 here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on July 20, 2010, for possession of 345,834 grams of cannabis, was expected to appear before Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan in the Port-of-Spain fourth (A) court on Tuesday, September 7, to answer another drug charge.

Instead, his bailor Derrick Cooper went to the prisoner’s bench to state why the prisoner had not attended court. Cooper presented a stamped document from the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court detailing the sentence: “Sentenced to pay a fine in the sum of (EC) $250,000 forthwith less value of forfeited boat which is $40,000.00. Fine of $210,000 to be paid forthwith in default three years imprisonment,” the document stated.

Acting Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington, who appeared in court in Cardenas-Ragoonanan’s absence, adjourned the hearing.

Noel appeared before Senior Magistrate Donald Browne in the Kingstown Magistrates Court, where he pleaded guilty to the charge of possession of 345,834 grams of cannabis.

The charged stated: “On the 19th day of July, 2010, at Troumaca Bay in St Vincent and the Grenadines and within the Third Magisterial District, had in your possession a controlled drug to wit “Three hundred and forty-five thousand, eight hundred and thirty-four (345,834) grammes of “cannabis” with intent to supply it to another.”

Upon his quilty plea, Noel was sentenced to jail on August 4, 2010.