When Deon Peters woke up yesterday he thought he was still dreaming.
Peters woke up in his own bed yesterday after spending more than ten months behind bars.
On Friday Peters walked out the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court a free man after Senior Magistrate Indrani Cedeno dismissed charges against him and 13 others who were accused of being members of the gang allegedly responsible for the murder of senior counsel Dana Seetahal because of an error by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Peters yesterday told the Sunday Guardian he had nothing to do with Seetahal’s death.
“The State knew I had nothing to do with it that is why I was never asked about it and I was charged with being part of a gang,” Peters said.
He said although it took an error to cause him to be free, it was the right decision.
Peters, an artiste who goes by the name “Bigg Lexx,” believes he was unfairly targeted by police after a video of his song “Unfair Game,” which highlighted unfair treatment meted out to murder accused Rajaee Ali by the State, became popular on YouTube.
He is glad the situation is now over.
“When I woke up this morning it was like ‘wow’. You know when you locked up you say there are so much things you would do when you come out and now you don’t want to do anything, you just want to relax. I got up, went outside, chilled and walked around. I even went by the barber,” Peters said.
Peters said he was surprised when he was released on Friday.
“For some months now the lawyers have been arguing back and forth about the different submissions and about what right and what wrong by law so I had an idea it was coming up, but it started to feel like nothing was going to happen and I started to feel despondent,” Peters said.
“I walked out the court and I stood on the corner where we usually see our wives when we leaving court. So I stood on that corner there and the officers told me I had to move further away,” he said.
“I walked down a little bit and when I walked down I saw one police jeep pull in front of me and a next jeep pull around the corner by CID (Criminal Investigation Department), so I found I started to see too much police around me and I started to feel like they were enclosing me and I started to feel uncomfortable so I started to walk away,” Peters said.
Peters said he borrowed money from a friend working in Port-of-Spain. “I walked to City Gate and got in an Arima maxi. In the maxi it was surreal and I was wondering if at any moment I would wake up to find it was all a dream,” he said.
Peters said a woman in the maxi allowed him to make a call using her cellphone. He called a friend who met him in Arima. In Arima he called his wife, Kelly Ann Gabriel.
“I asked her what she was doing, she said she was heading to a retreat. I told her ‘well, I was now studying to come and check you’. So you could imagine the reaction. She said ‘What? what you mean?’ I told her if she wanted to see me I was by XYZ and she just came and that was a moment itself,” Peters said.
Peters said for his first meal as a free man he bought a bucket of fried chicken from Royal Castle.
While Peters was locked up behind bars he used to call his daughter, Deneicia, and help her study for the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination.
“I missed being there with her on the day of SEA. She begged for me to be there because many times while I was in (prison) I was working with her over the phone with the SEA and I was praying to be there with her but I didn’t make it,” Peters said.
Peters, however, promises to be there to support Deneicia at her upcoming graduation from the St Hilary’s Preparatory School in Arima.
Deneicia is the valedictorian.
Charges dismissed
Cedeno dismissed the charges which were laid under the Anti-Gang Legislation, stating it would be unlawful for the State to continue the prosecution given that the charges were laid incorrectly and that it would be an injustice to the accused.
In its application, the DPP’s Office admitted to laying the charges indictably (heard and determined by a High Court Judge and jury), as opposed to summarily (heard and determined by a magistrate) as prescribed by the legislation.
However, Cedeno said the amendment could not be permitted as she felt the accused would be prejudiced by it, as the penalty for the offence is greater on summary conviction than that meted out on conviction before a judge and jury. She also criticised the DPP’s Office for its delay in seeking the amendment, as she said it should have been noticed at a preliminary stage.
The DPP's Office also cannot now re-lay the gang charges against the men as the six-month window for doing so has already expired. Peters lauded his attorney Criston J Williams whom he described as a “young lion” for his work in the matter. Ali, his brothers Ishmael and Hamid Ali, Devaughn Cummings, Ricardo Stewart, Earl Richards, Stephan Cummings, Kevin Parkinson, Leston Gonzales, Roget Boucher, and Gareth Wiseman remain on trial for Seetahal’s murder. David Ector, who like Peters was not indicted for the murder, was not as lucky though, as after being discharged he was led out of court and detained by police on an outstanding warrant for an unrelated criminal offence.
Unlike Ector and Peters, Stacy Griffith, the third person who was charged for being a gang member and not with the murder, will remain with her husband, Rajaee Ali, as she has a separate charge of benefiting from the gang’s activity, which was laid correctly by the DPP’s Office.