Justice Rishi Persaud yesterday sentenced Ray Castello called “Tony” to ten years in jail after he was found guilty of raping and sodomising a 12-year-old girl between April 11 and 14, 2005.
The sentenced was handed down after a mixed Berbice Assizes jury that deliberated for two hours returned a majority verdict of 10 to 2, in support of the prosecution’s case.
Asked what he had to say, Castello told the judge “I am innocent.”
Defence witness, Carla Castello, sister of the accused, who testified yesterday told the court that at the time the incident was said to have been committed her brother had been in her company. She said he visited her April 12 and stayed from 8 am to 12 pm.
While addressing the jury, Castello claimed that he was a victim of circumstances since relatives of the virtual complainant had been imprisoned for murdering a member of his family.
In her evidence, the virtual complainant, who is now in her teens said she had gone to bathe at the waterside with her younger brother. As they were walking back home up a hill, the boy left her to go to their grandmother’s house and she went to pick ‘awaras’ (a palm tree fruit). She said it was then that Castello accosted her, covered her mouth and committed the act.
The young woman, who was led in her evidence by State Prosecutor Leron Daly, said the accused had called out to her and told her if she did not wait on him he would chop her with a cutlass. After he was finished, she said, he got dressed and gave her $600 and told her not to say anything.
She was later taken to Springlands by her grandmother to see her mother and a policewoman accompanied them to the Skeldon Hospital and then to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where she was examined by a doctor.
