Agricola man admits to ganja charge, gets 4 years
(From left) Ivor Anderson, Troy Jacobs, Perez Cush, and Michael Solomon.
Kaieteur News – Four days after he walked into Court Three at Georgetown Magistrates’ Court and confessed to handing a bag to a visually impaired man containing cannabis, Michael Solomon, of Lot 168 Agricola, Demerara East Bank, yesterday he received he was officially charged and sentenced to four years imprisonment.
Solomon appeared at Georgetown Magistrates’ Court before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly. He pleaded guilty to the charge, and noted that on Feb. 12, 2021, in Georgetown, he had 3.156 kilograms of cannabis in his possession for human trafficking purposes.
Three men were previously charged with the crime. Those men are Perez Cush, 43, barber, of Newtown Kitty, Georgetown; Troy Jacobs, 46, businessman, of Penny Lane, South Ruimveldt, Georgetown; and Ivor Anderson, 75, of Region Eight.
Last Monday, Solomon along with his lawyer, Paul Fung-A-Fat, walked into the Chief Magistrate, Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus’s courtroom, and chose to plead guilty to the ganja charge.
In his address to the court, Solomon said that, on the day in question, he had given Anderson the bag, which contained 3.156 kilograms of cannabis. Fung-A-Fat told the court his client was ready to plead guilty to the charge for which Cush, Jacobs and Anderson are charged.
As a result, Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) prosecutor Konyo Sandiford told Chief Magistrate Marcus that Solomon would be escorted to CANU headquarters for questioning. Solomon was subsequently charged and placed before the court yesterday for the crime.
Senior Magistrate Daly sentenced Solomon to four years in prison and fined him $ 2,367,000.
Anderson, Joseph, and Cush made their first court appearance on Feb. 15, 2021, and were all set on $ 500,000 bail each, with a condition attached that they all submit their passports. They are expected to make their next court appearance for the same offense on April 19, 2021.
According to reports, Cush, Jacobs and Anderson were intercepted on February 12, 2021, by CANU ranks while traveling along the route of Homestretch and Mandela Avenues, Georgetown. A search was conducted on the vehicle and a parcel allegedly containing the cannabis was uncovered.