People smuggler ordered to pay back criminal earnings

May 24, 2013 9:23 AM
PHILIPSBURG - A 56-year-old man sentenced in November 2012 to fifteen months for the attempted smuggling of eleven persons fromCubaand theDominican Republicinto St. Maarten in July 2012 was ordered by the Court on Thursday to pay back the money he had earned with this illegal transport.
 
Prosecutor Tineke Kamps had filed a so-called dispossession claim against Cobert McElroy Jeffrey during a Court session on 28 March.
 
The captain of the vessel Lady Gina had earned US $14,094.15 in the illegal operation, the Prosecutor's Office had estimated. The boat was seized by the Court last year.
 
Jeffrey's passengers had told the police they had paid US $1,700 per person for the trip from Antigua.
 
Judge Tamara Tijhuis, who presented the verdict in the dispossession case on Thursday, stated she had estimated the defendant's criminal income at US $15,300. The defendant was allowed to deduct expenses from the amount, such as the cost of diesel fuel used during transport, the Judge said.
 
Contrary to what attorney at law Geert Hatzmann (Bermon Law Office on Sint Maarten) had pleaded during the hearing, the Judge held Jeffrey solely responsible for the people-smuggling. According to his lawyer, Jeffrey had not been involved in a single-person operation, but had received assistance from at least two other persons in Antigua.
 
Judge Tijhuis agreed that the defendant, described by the defence as a "poor, retired fisherman," might not be in a rose-coloured financial situation, but this was no reason to lower the requested amount, the Judge said.
 
Because amounts of fines have to be stated in Netherlands' Antilles currency, according to the law, the Judge set the official amount at NAf. 25,370.10.
 
The defendant will have to sit for five months in case of non-compliance, or if he pays back only part of the amount.
 

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