FORMER Matthews Lane strongman Donald ‘Zeeks’ Phipps is scheduled to return to the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court on January 29 to answer charges of abstracting electricity and unlawful possession of property.

The trial failed to get off the ground on Monday because the clerk of the court assigned to the case was absent.

As a result, presiding magistrate Desiree Alleyne ordered Phipps to return next January to stand trial. The judge also told Yvonne Salesman, Phipps’ common-law, who was charged alongside him, to return to court on that date.

The charges against Phipps arose out of a raid on his Matthews Lane stronghold and a subsequent raid on his Highland Drive home in Havendale, St Andrew, in April last year.

The police say they found money amounting to J$18 million, ski masks, a bullet-proof vest and two sticks of ganja at the Highland Drive residence. At the premises in Matthews Lane the police allegedly found 26 rounds of .45 ammunition, two pounds of cured ganja and controlled pharmaceuticals.

He was charged with illegal possession of ammunition, unlawful possession of pharmaceuticals and possession of two pounds of ganja, in addition to abstracting electricity.