FORMER Matthews Lane strongman Donald ‘Zeeks’ Phipps was yesterday remanded in custody when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court to answer to charges of unlawful possession of property and abstraction of electricity.

Phipps is charged alongside his spouse, Yvonne Salesman.

Phipps was charged after police raided his premises at Matthews Lane and his Highland Drive home in Havendale, St Andrew, in April 2005.

The police say they found money amounting to J$18 million, ski masks, a bullet-proof vest and a small amount 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.

Phipps and Salesman, who was granted bail, will return to court on November 26.

Yesterday, the former ‘don’ looked a shadow of the man who once wielded enormous power and who used a bullhorn to disperse an angry mob who had been rioting for three days in downtown Kingston after he was arrested for attempted murder, illegal possession of a firearm and unlawful wounding in September 1998. Two police officers were among four persons killed in that riot while eight others were injured.

Phipps looked haggard and stared wild-eyed as the court proceedings went on. His hair appeared unkempt and his clothes fit him loosely.

There was also an absence of a throng of supporters who usually converged on the court during his earlier appearances.

He is currently serving a life sentence after being found guilty of the double murder of Dayton ‘Scotchbrite’ Williams and Rodney Farquharson, who were shot in the head and their bodies burnt in an open lot on Rose Lane, downtown Kingston in April 2006.