A single mother who claimed she accepted a job to export $1 million in cocaine stashed in picture frames and a car part because she needed money to buy food has been jailed for a year and a half.
Melina Rachel Wiltshire, 40, of Chaguanas, had already spent two and a half years in a jail because she was unable to access $1 million bail and could not plead to the charges because they were laid indictably.
However, senior state attorney Harricharan Kassie, attached to the Customs and Excise Department, told San Fernando Magistrate Alicia Chankar that he got instructions from Director of Public Prosecutions South, Joan Honore-Paul, to proceed with the charges summarily.
When the charges, including three counts of attempting to export prohibited goods and three charges of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking were re-read to her, Wiltshire pleaded guilty.
Kassie said on February 20, 2015, Wiltshire went to TTPost branch at Coffee Street, San Fernando, where she posted a black cylindrical car part, containing cocaine, to a person in Nigeria. She used the name Melissa Ali from Chickland, Freeport. On March 9, 2015, at the Piarco International Airport, the police received information and took possession of a box with the part. On March 16, Wiltshire again posted four plaques, containing cocaine, to Nigeria, using the Melissa Ali name.
Kassie said around 10 am on March 19, 2015, police officers were on a special assignment at the Coffee Street TTPost branch when they saw her with a yellow plastic bag conducting a transaction. When the officers searched the bag they found three plaques with cocaine in it. She was then taken to the Organised Crime Narcotic and Firearm Bureau (OCNFB) based at the airport where she was shown the box and the declaration form she signed as Melissa Ali. The cops also seized $3,054. The total weight of the cocaine was 2.46 kilogrammes. The charges were laid by Customs and Excise Officer PC Forde and PC Campbell of OCNFB.
Asking for mercy, Wiltshire’s attorney Renu Teekasingh said the accused has a 20-year-old daughter and is a single parent. With no money to purchase food for herself or her child then, she said her client accepted an offer from a person to export the packages. She was paid $2,900. Teekasingh said her client had never been in trouble with the law before, cooperated with the police and had been in custody for the past two and a half years.
In passing sentence, the magistrate said many people were single parents and everyone has choices. However, she said the first choice is the right choice, which is the honest choice and trying to do things with integrity. Noting that she used a fake name, the magistrate told her she must have known she was doing something dishonest.
Wiltshire said she trusted the DVD vendor who solicited her help and he never visited her in jail.
“You are not the big fish, but a small fry. You will have to feel the brunt of it,” said the magistrate, as she sentenced her to one and half years on each of the export charges. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
However, Kassie advised the magistrate that she could only convict on one set of charges, either the Customs or the police charges. He said the Customs carry a more serious penalty with an eight-year jail term or a minimal fine of $50,000 or triple the amount the value of the goods.
As a result, the magistrate reprimanded and discharged her on the cocaine trafficking charges. The magistrate also ordered that the $3,054 seized from her be donated to the Guardian Neediest Fund.