A 22-year-old fisherman from Toco, Trinidad, Dion Harry was fined EC$21,000 (EC$1 = US$0.37) for possession of cocaine and ammunition offenses in St. Vincent.
Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne said Harry would serve time in prison if he did not pay the fines.
She further ordered that he, as well as the three men who were originally jointly charged with him, be deported.
On Tuesday, Dion Harry, Joel Medina, Andre Lee, and Kerry Keller were taken before the court. According to the report on October 14, at Canouan, the men had in their possession 330 grams of cocaine with intent to supply it to another, had it for the purpose of drug trafficking, and attempted to import the drug into the country.
The men were also charged with possession of 20 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition and 49 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition without a license.
Harry pleaded guilty to the charges while the co-accused pleaded not guilty.
When they returned to court on Wednesday, the other men maintained their respective pleas, and prosecutor Station Sergeant Renrick Cato withdrew the charges against them.
The court granted the prosecution’s application for a removal order for the trio.
The facts, as presented by Cato, are that on October 14, acting on information, the coast guard intercepted a white, blue, and green pirogue, west of Canouan. The vessel had four occupants, including Harry.
Nothing was found on any of the men, but when the vessel was searched at the coast guard base, officers found a black plastic bag among some brown sugar and in that bag were 16 packages of a light brown, fudge-like substance resembling cocaine and a package with several rounds of ammunition. Charges were subsequently laid.
In mitigation, Harry’s lawyer Duane Daniel pointed out that no weapons were found on the boat, his young client had no previous convictions and had cooperated with the police and entered a guilty plea.
Regarding the charge of possession of the cocaine with intent to supply, he said his instructions were that the men were off the coast of Grenada, and St. Vincent was not even their destination.
“But the coast guard, in the exercise of their duty, saw the vessel and boarded it and took them to an SVG port,” Daniel said, adding that his client was throwing himself at the mercy of the court.
He said Dion Harry had three of the strongest mitigating factors in his favor – his youth, a guilty plea, and no previous conviction.
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