Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 47-year-old se­r­i­al bur­glar from south Trinidad has been sen­tenced to six and a half years in prison for his lat­est heist. 

Mark Chat­ter­goon re­ceived the sen­tence from High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh af­ter plead­ing guilty to rob­bery with vi­o­lence, false im­pris­on­ment and pos­ses­sion of an of­fen­sive weapon. 

Chat­ter­goon en­tered the pleas af­ter he re­ceived a max­i­mum sen­tence in­di­ca­tion from Jus­tice Singh ear­li­er this month. 

The charges stemmed from an in­ci­dent at a cloth­ing store on High Street in San Fer­nan­do on Oc­to­ber 2, last year. 

Chat­ter­goon en­tered the store and ex­pressed in­ter­est in pur­chas­ing three se­cu­ri­ty vests, three side bags, two cam­ou­flage boots, three belts and four firearm hol­sters. 

A store at­ten­dant gath­ered the items, placed them in bags and be­gan prepar­ing a bill. 

Chat­ter­goon pulled an ice pick from the waist­band of his pants and threat­ened to stab the woman in her stom­ach. 

He de­mand­ed that she hand over her $4,000 gold chain and the con­tents of the cash reg­is­ter, which had $1,235 in cash at the time. 

Af­ter she com­plied, he tied her hands and feet. 

 He then took the cash, the chain and the bags with the items and ran away. 

The woman freed her­self and made a re­port to the po­lice. 

Chat­ter­goon was ar­rest­ed a short while lat­er at a near­by casi­no. 

When he was first in­ter­ro­gat­ed by the po­lice, he ini­tial­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing. 

“She tie up she self,” Chat­ter­goon said. 

He lat­er ad­mit­ted that he com­mit­ted the rob­bery and claimed he did it to pro­vide for his three young chil­dren, who he has cus­tody of.

He was de­nied bail based on him com­mit­ting the crimes while on bail for sim­i­lar of­fences. 

Pre­sent­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea on Chat­ter­goon’s be­half, his lawyer Adelia Jor­dan, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment (PDD) ad­mit­ted that he had 15 pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions for sim­i­lar of­fences aris­ing out of sev­er­al bur­glar­ies dat­ing as far back as 2002. 

In re­quest­ing le­nien­cy, Jor­dan not­ed that Chat­ter­goon, who was di­ag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia and bipo­lar dis­or­der, showed re­morse af­ter be­ing caught. 

“He did not at­tempt to evade the po­lice, nor did he re­sist ar­rest. Rather, he co­op­er­at­ed with the au­thor­i­ties and pro­vid­ed an ex­pla­na­tion to the ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer,” Jor­dan said. 

She al­so not­ed that he apol­o­gised to the vic­tim and of­fered to pay com­pen­sa­tion. 

“His will­ing­ness to com­pen­sate the com­plainant is in­dica­tive of his ac­cep­tance of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and his com­mit­ment to re­pair­ing the harm caused,” Jor­dan said. 

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing the na­ture of the case, his ex­ten­sive crim­i­nal record, ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for his guilty pleas, and de­duct­ing the time he spent on re­mand, Chat­ter­goon was sen­tenced to six years and six months for false im­pris­on­ment, four years and eight months for rob­bery and two years for the weapon. 

Chat­ter­goon is ex­pect­ed to be re­leased af­ter com­plet­ing the high­est sen­tence, as Jus­tice Singh or­dered that the sen­tences run con­cur­rent­ly. 

The case was pros­e­cut­ed by As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Dy­lan Mar­tin, and at­tor­neys Josi­ah Soo Hon and Khi Cam­bridge.