Thirty-year-old Odessa Stoby, called Odessa Mingo, accused of being the hairdresser who placed a quantity of cocaine in another woman’s wig, was yesterday remanded to prison when she appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court to answer a trafficking in narcotics charge.
The mother of two of Lot 154 First Street, Herstelling, East Bank Demerara entered a not guilty plea to the summary charge when Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton read it to her.
She denied that on January 12 at Agricola, EBD, she trafficked in 1.1 kilogrammes of cocaine by attempting to export same.
Her lawyer applied for bail on her behalf on the grounds that she is a mother of two and is the sole breadwinner of her household. However, Prosecutor Shellon Daniels objected to the bail application on the grounds that the offence is only bailable if a special reason is attached to it and noted that the defence had presented none to the court.
Stoby told the court that she did not supply the cocaine to her friend who had been charged, fined and sentenced to four years imprisonment shortly after admitting that she was indeed found with the cocaine in her wig while at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
The friend, Annola Peters, told the court on Monday that she did not know that Stoby had placed the cocaine in her wig although she had observed that it felt bulky after Stoby had finished styling her hair. Peters said that Stoby told her that the bulkiness was caused from her using four packs of curl extensions in her hair.
Stoby is expected to make another court appearance on April 19.
