Richie Renee, a 23-year-old from Elms Hall and 30-year-old Arlington Moise of Didier Lane, Goodwill, will spend time at the Dominica State Prison following their conviction for theft of over $3,000.00 worth of items at a house in Goodwill.
Renee who was recently charged with burglary at the Magistrate court and denied bail, found himself facing another theft charge.
According to the charge brought by the police, on October 17, 2021 at Canal Lane Goodwill, Renee and Moise entered a house belonging to Jocelyn Cuffy Peters and stole one 40 inch flat screen TV valued at $2,810.00, one extension cord, five bottles of champagne and several bottles of alcoholic drinks with a total value of $3,520.29.
They were also charged with maliciously damaging a burglar bar valued at $150.00.
Renee and Moise pleaded guilty to both charges at their court appearance.
The facts presented to the court by police prosecutor, Inspector Davidson Cadette, revealed that at about 5:00 p.m. on October 17, Franklyn Cuffy who is the caretaker of his sister’s home in Canal Lane, Goodwill, secured the premises prior to leaving the house.
On his return the following day, he observed that the burglar bar which secured a window on the second floor was damaged. Upon entry into the house, he also noticed that the entire dwelling place had been ransacked and that the aforementioned items were missing.
Cuffy contacted the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Constable Daniel Ormond was assigned to the matter. The police officer immediately commenced investigation and visited the home with another officer who assisted him in examining the scene.
On October 28, Moise was arrested on suspicion of burglary at the court while Renee was arrested the following day for the same offence.
Two days later, constable Ormond met and identified himself to Renee at the cells in the Roseau Police Station, cautioned him and informed him of the report he was investigating at Goodwill.
During the said conversation with the police officer, Renee admitted to damaging the burglar bar, entering the home and stealing the items along with Moise.
Later that same day, the investigating officer also conducted an interview with Moise and he too confessed to stealing the items from the home.
A charge of theft and malicious damage was subsequently preferred against both men.
During the investigation, only the television was recovered.
At the hearing, attorney-at-law Darius Jones who represented Renee, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
Jones told the magistrate that Renee is a father of a 4-year-old and he serves as her sole provider.
He also stated that his client suffers from an underlying heart condition and a custodial sentence would not be in his favor.
However, in handing down her sentence, the Chief Magistrate said she precisely followed the sentencing guideline and due to the offenders’ previous conviction, she was unable to impose a fine.
The maximum penalty for a thief on summary conviction is seven years in prison and Magistrate Carette-George gave a starting point of 20 percent of the maximum sentence, 17 months in prison.
Due to the aggravating factor of the offense, Carette-George added six months as she said there appeared to be a certain level of planning involved. As it relates to the aggravating factor of the offenders, another six months was added because both had previous convictions of a similar nature.
The magistrate said there were no mitigating factors to consider. However, for their guilty plea, one third of the time was removed and the men were sentenced to 1 year and 8 months in jail.
Unfortunately for Moise, his time was doubled as he fell in default of a suspended jail sentence.
On November 24, 2020, Moise appeared before Magistrate Michael Laudat on a charge of theft and the presiding magistrate had sentenced him to two years in jail but suspended his sentence for three years.
“Like Mr Laudat explained to you, if you reoffend within those three years you must serve the two years jail time which he suspended. Because you now stand convicted of another offense you are in default of Mr Laudat’s suspended sentence and you must serve that time,” Magistrate Carette-George told the 30-year-old.
No separate penalty was imposed for the charge of malicious damage.
Trouble I see,there are thousands of Dominican-Americans including me,and Skerrit is not our father.Work hard build a good future for yourself,and stop blaming Skerrit for all you LAZINESS.
Money god,are you talking about the burning of the roads in Salisbury and Marigot?Or are you talking about the assault on the Archbishop and Bishop in Marigot?I guess you forgot the DESTRUCTION of Dr.Ferreira,Duncan Stowe,and the Muslim property.You also forgot the $2,000,000 fire at Captain Bruce,not forgetting the burning of the City Council property.What about stoning,and injuring the police in Salisbury?.LAZY ARE U LAZY.Go commit crimes as usual and blame Skerrit for all you CRIMINAL activities
There should at least be a photo of the perpetrators so that persons who do t know them could identify them in case they are in an area scouting when released. Make it more difficult for their the work they want to practice.
Accept it or reject it if you want but what’s going on in Dominica these days is nothing more than the fruits of Mammon that falling on us, just as the fruits of mangoes falling. We planted the tree of mammon 18 years ago and we watered it, fertilized it, pruned it and now we reaping the harvest. So we see our young men going to steal right in the court, stealing rum, murderiing one another and all kinds of evil fruits because that’s the fruits of mammon. Sadly the church, some of our pastors, evangelists, bishop, priests were involved and still involved in planting and nurturing the evil seeds of money god. The church watched their members go to the courts to lie for money god, lie about his birth place, lie about villas and still had them on pulpit preaching and laying hands on people. In fact I was reliably informed that one of the killers grew up in a Pentecostal church and many of the young men on the road stealing, drinking and involved in all kinds of crime grew up in church
These days our young men are either being jailed for stealing, they are being murdered, they are on the roadside under the influence of weed, crack or rum or they stabbing or killing people most times in friendly fights under the influence. I some will ask for maximum punishment but if you have a son out there and his last name is not Skerrit, with a future paved in the US for them don’t be too harsh because I see real trouble ahead for these kids with the dark future Skerrit has prepared for them
It looks like we have some professional thieves in DA.
Mr Zandoli sir. Please don’t tell me you now discovering this, or now coming to this conclusion. You have not been watching or listening to the news, reading the newspaper, hearing to the talk on the streets???