An­na-Lisa Paul

There was no one to pump his flag out­side the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court yes­ter­day af­ter so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano was found guilty on four counts of as­sault and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage. Equal­ly, there was no "palanc­ing" tak­ing place as song­writer/pro­duc­er Ker­nal Roberts was al­so found guilty on two counts of as­sault.

The two will know their fate when they reap­pear be­fore mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor in the Sev­enth Court on Jan­u­ary 17. Fel­low artistes-Joel "Zan" Feveck and Rod­ney "Ben­jai" Le Blanc-who were joint­ly charged with Mon­tano and Roberts, walked out of the court free men af­ter they were ac­quit­ted on two counts and one count of as­sault re­spec­tive­ly.

Leav­ing the court min­utes af­ter the de­ci­sion was hand­ed down Roberts and Mon­tano and his en­tourage hur­ried along Duke Street to es­cape the cam­eras. Both re­fused to com­ment. Wear­ing a som­bre ex­pres­sion, Mon­tano's moth­er and man­ag­er Eliz­a­beth Mon­tano al­so re­fused to com­ment as she rushed to catch up with the group at the cor­ner of Aber­crom­by and Duke Streets.

Mon­tano's body­guard en­sured the me­dia kept a safe dis­tance from the group. Mon­tano, 37, cre­at­ed his­to­ry when he cap­tured the Road March, Pow­er So­ca Monarch and Groovy So­ca Monarch ti­tles ear­li­er this year. The four men went on tri­al in 2008 and yes­ter­day's de­ci­sion was de­liv­ered af­ter an ad­journ­ment on No­vem­ber 23. It was the fourth time that the mat­ter had been list­ed for de­ci­sion and was ad­journed.

Af­ter de­liv­er­ing her rul­ing, Ba­boolal-Gafoor heard from Mon­tano's at­tor­ney Dana See­ta­hal, SC, who pro­vid­ed a brief syn­op­sis of the events that led up to yes­ter­day's rul­ing. See­ta­hal said the of­fences oc­curred five years ago and arose out of one in­ci­dent.

Pe­ti­tion­ing the mag­is­trate to take in­to ac­count the length of time that had elapsed since the charge was laid and the out­come, See­ta­hal urged Ba­boolal-Gafoor to con­sid­er that Mon­tano had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters and up un­til five years ago had "had no brush with the law up to that time."

Machel Mon­tano found guilty

Say­ing Mon­tano's life was an open book and his artis­tic and mu­si­cal abil­i­ty were well known through­out the Caribbean and fur­ther afield, See­ta­hal re­ferred to Mon­tano as "an am­bas­sador of T&T in mu­sic and singing and his whole life, as it were."

Point­ing out that Mon­tano had been cel­e­brat­ing his Road March win in 2007 when the in­ci­dent oc­curred, See­ta­hal said Mon­tano had not ini­ti­at­ed it, as he had been "go­ing about his busi­ness en­joy­ing him­self with friends and not both­er­ing any­one" when he was ap­proached by the vic­tims, who be­gan win­ing on him.

See­ta­hal said af­ter Mon­tano re­fused to in­dulge one of the vic­tims a sec­ond time a drink was spilled, the fra­cas be­gan in­side and con­tin­ued out­side the club. She ap­pealed to the mag­is­trate to con­sid­er the grav­i­ty of the of­fences and en­sure the pun­ish­ment was com­men­su­rate with each of­fence.

Ar­riv­ing in court out of breath af­ter be­ing sum­moned from the Ap­peal Court at the Hall of Jus­tice, Roberts' at­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land ap­pealed for his client to be giv­en com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. "In the life of the sec­ond de­fen­dant (Roberts), this must be an aber­ra­tion," Scot­land said.

Telling the mag­is­trate that Roberts, 31, was a ded­i­cat­ed fa­ther of three who lived at the Rain-O-Ra­ma Palace, Diego Mar­tin, Scot­land said he had a clean record and was a "pro­lif­ic pro­duc­er" who had writ­ten hits, such as Band of the Year (2006), Jumbie (2007), Palance (2010), Ad­van­tage (2011) and Pump Your Flag (2012).

Urg­ing Ba­boolal-Gafoor to con­sid­er the time, place and con­text of the events as they had un­fold­ed five years ago, Scot­land cit­ed cas­es in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances where pub­lic fig­ures had been be­fore the court as he said: "This de­fen­dant has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion for the rest of his life."

Re­veal­ing that Roberts was a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er in the Diego Mar­tin and Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ties and could not be count­ed as a "re­peat of­fend­er," Scot­land said Roberts' ca­reer of­ten took him to the US, Cana­da and Eu­rope, "shar­ing the cul­ture of T&T." Telling Scot­land she could not con­sid­er com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice un­til a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer had com­plet­ed re­ports on both men and their suit­abil­i­ty to per­form it, Ba­boolal-Gafoor or­dered that re­ports be done.

She re­served sen­tenc­ing un­til next year, when the re­ports will be sub­mit­ted, af­ter which Mon­tano's and Roberts' sen­tences will be de­ter­mined. Speak­ing to re­porters, Le Blanc said: "I feel vin­di­cat­ed" while Feveck said: "This has been a long time in com­ing and it is now over for us."

Asked how they felt about the guilty ver­dict hand­ed down in re­spect of Mon­tano and Roberts, Le Blanc said: "We are sup­port­ing them 100 per cent through­out." Feveck was rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Williams while Ra­jiv Per­sad and John Heath ap­peared on Le Blanc's be­half. George Bus­by pros­e­cut­ed the mat­ter. The pos­si­ble penal­ties:?

The as­sault charges were laid un­der Sec­tion 14 of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, which says: "Any per­son who un­law­ful­ly or ma­li­cious­ly wounds or in­flicts any griev­ous bod­i­ly harm up­on any oth­er per­son ei­ther with or with­out a weapon or in­stru­ment is li­able to im­pris­on­ment of five years."

Scot­land said yes­ter­day the mag­is­trate had a wide spec­trum of op­tions avail­able to her when sen­tenc­ing, in­clud­ing im­pris­on­ment, a fine, bond, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or­der and com­pen­sa­tion. The ob­scene lan­guage charge car­ries a max­i­mum fine of $200.

Why haven't they ap­pealed??

Kei­th Scot­land, Ker­nal Roberts' at­tor­ney, ex­plained yes­ter­day evening in a phone in­ter­view that at­tor­neys must wait un­til sen­tenc­ing be­fore rais­ing the ques­tion of an ap­peal.

Still no com­ment

Up to yes­ter­day evening, Mon­tano's phone was go­ing straight to voice mail. At­tor­ney Dana See­ta­hal, SC, could not be reached for com­ment. A woman who an­swered Eliz­a­beth Mon­tano's phone yes­ter­day evening said Mon­tano was on an­oth­er line but she might re­turn the call to the T&T Guardian lat­er.

Charges

As­sault­ing Rus­sell Pol­lon­ais:

Guilty:?Machel Mon­tano and Ker­nal Roberts

Not guilty: Joel "Zan" Feveck and Rod­ney "Ben­jai" Le Blanc

As­sault­ing Bran­dis Brown:

Guilty: Machel Mon­tano, Ker­nal Roberts

Not guilty: Joel "Zan" Feveck

As­sault­ing Ger­ard Bowrin, oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm:

Guilty:?Machel Mon­tano

As­sault­ing Janelle Lee Chee, oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm:

Guilty: Machel Mon­tano

Us­ing ob­scene lan­guage:

Guilty:?Machel Mon­tano

Date of the in­ci­dent:

The four men were charged fol­low­ing a fra­cas out­side the night­club at Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, on April 26, 2007.