Burglar claims he fell asleep in lotto booth in Kingstown

An 18-year-old who was charged with breaking into a lotto booth owned by the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC), bluffed his way to a four-year prison sentence.

Jrad Jobe was charged this Monday, before the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court that he did, last Saturday, enter the CDC lotto booth, as a trespasser, with the intention of committing the offence of theft. He was also charged with damaging one clock, worth $100, belonging to the CDC, and being reckless as to whether that property was damaged.

It was apparently at 1:25 in the morning that the police received information about the lotto booth. When they arrived, a security guard informed that there was someone inside the booth. The booth had been secured the day before. The police met the defendant, and asked him to exit the booth, and questioned him as to the reason why he was there.

After being cautioned he said that someone threw him inside the booth, and that he fell asleep. Personnel from the CDC found the place ransacked and the lock lying on the floor.

Jobe was charged after they made a report.

Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett asked him if it was his first time appearing in court, to which he responded that it was.

“Let me ask you again. Is this the first time you are appearing in a court?” he asked again, but the defendant seemed to be maintaining that it was.

“Mr Jobe, do not lie, I’m asking you again. Is this the first time you are appearing in a court?” the magistrate continued. The defendant remained tight-lipped, and the magistrate eventually reminded him of an incident where, when he had been presiding in Mesopotamia, Jobe had appeared before him for theft of a pig.

Burnett stated that he had remembered everything, that Jobe was charged with others, and that attorney Ronald Marks was involved in the case, and had asked the court to be lenient with them at the time, as they were young.

Jobe was asked what he was doing in Kingstown at one in the morning.

He told the magistrate that he had been hanging out at Heritage Square, and somebody had pushed him in the booth.

“Mr Jobe tell that to somebody else, not me. A big man like you?” Burnett told him.

“So your partner went into the building too or you alone?,” he asked Jobe, who replied that it was he alone. He also answered that the clock was damaged because it fell.

“What about the building, they say you were searching up and so on, what were you looking for?…a mattress to sleep on?” the magistrate continued.

Jobe said that his feet must have knocked things down.

“Well, you have an answer for everything…Well…I don’t believe that, you know. I do not believe that one,” the senior magistrate stated.

The defendant also only knew the first name of the guy who pushed him inside, citing it as ‘Kelly’.

Prosecutor Corlene Samuel interjected, “Your honour, he’s saying that the man just push him inside? Inside a building that was locked your honour…”

She also reiterated that the lock was damaged.

The magistrate asked who did all of that, and Jobe mentioned something to do with ‘Kelly’.

“Mr Jobe, there was no Kelly, you understand? Don’t try and outsmart me,” he was told.

Eventually, he admitted that no one had pushed him inside, and that there was no Kelly.

“The aggravating features of this case are, one, we have a problem with burglary in St Vincent,” Burnett indicated, saying that he reads the police report every week.

He also listed the time of the offence, and the fact that property was damaged to gain entry as aggravating.

Finally, he stated, “Fourthly, you lied straight in my face. I had to convince you that I did not believe you, then I got the truth from you.”

While sentencing Jobe to four years imprisonment for burglary and six months for damage to property, he told him, “I have to send a message to you and persons like you, that burglary and persons who burglarize homes, and the property of individuals will not be tolerated by this court, and this magistrate.”

Jobe seemed upset at the sentence, grabbing his bag angrily when he returned to his seat.