A disabled woman who admitted to selling marijuana on a La Romaine drug block was spared a jail sentence for a second time by a sympathetic magistrate yesterday.
“You are bent on staying in the marijuana trade,” San Fernando Magistrate Brambhanan Dubay told Michaeline Wall, 27, as he recalled 11 months ago she appeared before him on a similar charge and was warned she would be jailed if she came back before him.
After her first conviction her story was highlighted in the media and attracted sympathetic views from readers. Former Independent Senator Kriyaan Singh then agreed to pay her fine of $2,500.
“After considering everything I think you deserve a jail,” Magistrate Dubay told Wall after she pleaded guilty to marijuana possession in the Sixth Court. But he imposed a fine of $4,000.
Wall was arrested by police around 10.45 pm on Thursday, one street away from her Byron Street home where she lives with her parents.
Prosecutor Sgt Dianath Harricharan said PC Lange was on patrol along George Street when he saw Wall on a known drug block acting suspiciously. He told her she was in an area which was frequented by drug users. The officer observed that she was trying to hide a pack of cigarettes in her hand and took it from her. Upon examining the pack, he found it contained 11 packets of marijuana, weighing 12 grammes.
Asking for a chance, she said, “Oh gosh boss, I get lock up already. Don’t lock me up again nah. I living not far from here.”
She was taken to the Marabella Police Station where she spent the night. Reminding the magistrate that Wall appeared before him on March 6, her attorney Frank Gittens said she claimed then that she had been using the illegal drug for medicinal purposes.
He said Wall now receives public assistance, but she has been living under substandard conditions with rats and cockroaches.
“She has been trying to earn a small income by selling (marijuana),” said Gittens who submitted that Wall never went to primary or secondary school.
Gittens said the help people offered to help Wall when she first appeared in court had since dwindled.
“You understood you would get a jail and you still choose to come and sell weed on a block,” the magistrate scolded her.
Asked for his opinion on what to do with Wall, the prosecutor said it was clear she had no intention of changing her ways.
Recalling the murder of nine-year-old Cyon Paul in La Romaine, the magistrate asked her if she could run if gunmen pulled up on the drug block and started shooting at her.
As the magistrate scolded her for using his money, paid in taxes, to deal in drugs, she interjected, saying: “Your taxpayers money going in the bank and in the grocery. I not taking my money and buy them thing.”
Wall’s mother, Yvonne, who was crying, told the magistrate she was sick and could not properly supervise her daughter.
“Is bad company she following,” said Yvonne.
“I think you should make a jail,” the magistrate told Wall, but after considering her honesty and guilty plea he decided against it.
However, he warned, “You are on thin ice,” as he urged both mother and daughter to get their act together.
Wall has 90 days to pay the fine or serve 18 months in prison.