KINGSTON, Jamaica — A man was fined $100,000 for charges in relation to a passport he fraudulently obtained and forgot about when he reapplied for another passport recently.

Fifty-two-year-old Axie Farquharson was sentenced when he appeared before presiding Judge Carlo Mason at the Corporate Area Parish Court on Tuesday, May 28 after pleading guilty with explanation for making a false declaration and obtaining a passport by forged documents.

On May 16, Farquharson applied for a passport at the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency. However, investigations revealed that Farquharson had previously obtained a passport under the name Horacial Dallas.

Further investigations revealed that the passport under the name Horacial Dallas was fraudulently obtained. Farquharson was then arrested and charged.

Pleading his case, Farquharson said, “During the time when I obtained the passport, I was deported here and I have a family in the United States, I have 13 kids…It wasn’t easy hearing the voice of my son saying ‘daddy, promise me everything is going to be alright.”

Admitting that he did make a false declaration and obtained the passport by forged documents, Farquharson noted that he decided not to carry through with it.

Farquharson, who resides in Trinidad, said he only came to Jamaica following the recent death of his mother and his sister’s cancer diagnosis.

Sentencing Farquharson, Judge Mason said, “Imma keep it 100.”

Farquharson was fined $50,000 or three months in prison for making a false declaration. He was also fined $50,000 or three months in prison for obtaining a passport by forged documents.

— Kelsey Thomas