Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Three peo­ple, in­clud­ing an eight month preg­nant woman held in south Trinidad dur­ing the state of emer­gency ex­er­cis­es on Wednes­day, have ap­peared in court on mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing charges. Yes­ter­day, eight month preg­nant Melis­sa Pha­ran, to­geth­er with her 50 year-old moth­er, Mar­i­lyn, and 22 year-old neigh­bour Em­manuel Lewis, ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Court Mag­is­trate Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds charged with the Au­gust 24 of­fence. The trio are joint­ly charged with hav­ing 119 grammes of mar­i­jua­na in their pos­ses­sion at Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, Mon Re­pos, for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. They were charged by WPC Subero. Pha­ran and Lewis plead­ed not guilty to the charge. How­ev­er, the woman's moth­er Mar­i­lyn plead­ed guilty.

The 50 year-old was fined $3,000 with an al­ter­na­tive of four months' hard labour. She was or­dered to pay $1,000 forth­with. She has been giv­en three weeks to pay the dif­fer­ence. Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Rudy Ali told the court that around 11.15 am Subero was on pa­trol ex­er­cise du­ty at Build­ing 5, apart­ment 9 at Mon Re­pos when she en­coun­tered Mar­i­lyn. She told the woman that she had in­for­ma­tion and with the woman present searched her apart­ment for firearms and am­mu­ni­tion. The of­fi­cer found a green plas­tic bag in a green plas­tic con­tain­er with 45 pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na. When asked what she had to say, Mar­i­lyn said, "The po­lice say they was on ex­er­cise." She said she had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions.

At­tor­ney Bri­an Nedd ap­plied for bail on Lewis's be­half. He said the 22 year-old labour­er had one con­vic­tion for mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing and he plead­ed guilty. Lewis, he said, paid a $3,000 fine. Sgt Ali did not ob­ject to bail. How­ev­er, he asked that con­di­tions be set and the amount be sub­stan­tial. Ram­sumair-Hinds placed the man on $60,000 bail to be ap­proved by a Clerk of the Peace. She al­so or­dered that he re­port to the Mon Re­pos po­lice on Fri­days and Sat­ur­days be­tween 6 am and 8 pm.

Pha­ran, who is on $30,000 bail, told the court her de­liv­ery date is Sep­tem­ber 21.

She will reap­pear in court on No­vem­ber 1. Lewis was or­dered to re­turn to court on Sep­tem­ber 22.