Two of the three University of Guyana students who were accused of an armed hold up of a city store, where millions of dollars in items were stolen, were on Monday sentenced to community service for the crime.
Darien Best, 19, of 429 Guyhoc Park, Georgetown and Joel De Mendonca, 20, of 17 Providence Park, East Bank Demerara (EBD) had been found guilty of two charges of armed robbery by city magistrate Judy Latchman after a trial.
Another youth, Morris Gibson, 21, was also charged jointly with the duo but he had the case against him dismissed earlier in the trial.
The charges against them stated that on January 24th, 2014, at Robb Street, while being armed with a gun, they robbed Mohanlall Narine of a quantity of cellphones, valued at $8.968 million, and which was the property of Golyn and Sons Fashion. It also stated that on the same day, the men robbed Narine of two diamond rings, valued at $500,000 and a Samsung Galaxy cellphone, valued at $130,000, while armed with a gun.
On July 18th, Best and De Mendonca were found guilty as charged for the offences but sentencing was deferred pending probation reports. On Monday, the probation reports were presented and the magistrate ruled that after taking into consideration all the evidence given throughout the trial, she was satisfied that the prosecution had proved a prima facie case against the duo.
However, after taking into consideration the fact that Best and DeMendonca are both young men, that they are first time offenders and also the fact that the probation report highly favoured them she sentenced the duo to six hours of community service for the next 25 Mondays. In addition, they were also ordered to seek maximum counselling considered fit by the probation officer. The magistrate added that both Best and De Mendonca will face 48 months in jail for each charge if they fail to abide by the conditions of the sentence.
The court ordered that Best perform community service at the Palms and that De Mendonca perform his community service at the National Library.
It was the prosecution’s case that Gibson went into the store and enquired about the prices of cellphones and a fan. During his enquiries, Best entered the store and reportedly pointed a gun at Narine, who was the sales clerk at the time. He then ordered Narine to pack up the cellphones into a haversack. During the robbery, Narine was also relieved of his two rings and personal cellphone. However, Best, after retrieving the haversack with the stolen items, left the store and joined a waiting car on King Street.
The matter was reported at the Brickdam Police Station and officers, acting on information received, went to Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, where they intercepted Best and Gibson. At the time of their interception Best had a haversack on his back. The bag was checked and a number of cellphones were found inside. The two were arrested and questioned. They then took the police to De Mendonca’s Providence home, where he was questioned and admitted that he was the driver of the getaway car. His home was also searched and four cellphones were recovered. The phones were identified by Narine as some of those stolen.
Best was represented by attorney Adrian Thompson, while De Mendonca was represented by attorney Peter Hugh.
