Couple to pay $50,000 each for $200,000 kidnap hoax
A man and a woman who hatched a kidnapping hoax were fined in the in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court by judge Martin Gayle after they both pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
The couple, Jerome Berry, who also got a suspended prison term, and Maxine Brown, was arrested during a sting operation near the Blood Bank on Slipe Road in Kingston in early May.
The story that the couple had concocted, and told the police, was that Brown and her eight year-old daughter were walking along the Mavis Bank Main Road in St Andrew on the evening of May 1, when they were abducted by a man in a white Toyota Corolla motorcar. They were taken to an undisclosed location in Kingston and a ransom demand of $200,000 made to the child’s grandmother.
The next day, the ransom money was handed over to Berry, who was subsequently accosted by undercover cops and charged with kidnapping. Berry was taken to the Constant Spring police station where investigators unearthed evidence which suggested that the hoax was planned by Berry and the child’s mother, who was trying to fleece the child’s father, who resides overseas.
The case caused Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle to question whether a new trend of abductions had begun to surface.
“I hope this is not a new trend starting in Jamaica,” RM Gayle said.
“They felt the father was well-to-do,” defence attorney Tom Tavares-Finson, responded.
“I wonder what to do with them,” RM Gayle said.
“They have been in custody since May 11, and I suspect they have learnt a lesson in all of this. Perhaps a suspended sentence would be appropriate,” Tavares-Finson pleaded.
“She used her child as a pawn. It is very rare you find a pawn in chess game causing checkmate,” RM Gayle said with a chuckle.
Berry and Brown were both fined $50,000 or six months at hard labour for conspiracy, while Berry, who was slapped with the additional charge of assault occasioning bodily harm, was sentenced to two years at hard labour suspended for three years.
“If oonu want money, oonu go work,” RM Gayle said after he read out the sentences.
