KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite re­turn­ing an air- con­di­tion­er con­denser af­ter be­ing caught re­mov­ing it from a busi­ness, a scrap iron deal­er was sen­tenced to two years im­pris­on­ment with hard labour.

Be­fore sen­tenc­ing Ka­mal Ram­sun­dar, 35, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Cher­ril-Anne An­toine said the court was hap­py to see that he plead­ed guilty to the charge of lar­ce­ny and owned up to his crime.

How­ev­er, she chid­ed Ram­sun­dar, telling him: “You should be able to see peo­ple’s prop­er­ty and leave it alone.”

The fact that he had eight oth­er con­vic­tions for lar­ce­ny, mar­i­jua­na and co­caine did not work in favour of the fa­ther of two.

Court pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan told the First San Fer­nan­do Court yes­ter­day that around noon on Oc­to­ber 3, Maris­sa Nurse was at her work­place, En­tre­pre­neurs Gen­er­al Com­pa­ny Ltd along Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do when she last saw the com­pa­ny’s 24,000 BTU Peake Air Con­di­tion­er con­denser on the com­pound. Around 1.40 pm, she heard a noise out­side the build­ing and on check­ing, she saw Ram­sun­dar leav­ing the com­pound with the con­denser, which was val­ued at $5,000.

She con­tact­ed the San Fer­nan­do CID and when PC Dho­ray and oth­er of­fi­cers ar­rived at the busi­ness, Nurse point­ed to Ram­sun­dar and said, “Of­fi­cer, that is the man I saw tak­ing the air con­di­tion con­denser.” When Dho­ray con­front­ed Ram­sun­dar with the al­le­ga­tion, he re­spond­ed, “Yes boss, I re­al­ly take it to sell the cop­per wire from it.”

Ram­sun­dar and the con­denser were tak­en back to the San Fer­nan­do CID where the charge was laid.

He told the court that he was pick­ing up gal­vanise and old ma­chines left on the road­side on Oc­to­ber 3. He said al­though he put the con­denser in his van, he re­turned it af­ter be­ing con­front­ed by Nurse.

But An­toine said the con­denser was on some­one’s prop­er­ty when he re­moved it. She told him that it could have been his co­caine use which caused him to com­mit crimes.