PHILIPSBURG--The Joint Court of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba upheld the sentences Wednesday of two men who had committed armed robbery on St. Eustatius. The three judges of the Appellate Court rejected the Solicitor General's request to impose 12-year sentences on the repeat offenders.
The Court of First Instance in November 2009 had found Lamar U.R. Redan (23) and Tyrone V.A. Lopes (24) guilty of having robbed and mistreated an elderly woman on St. Eustatius.
Redan, who was also found guilty of robbing and mistreating a 95-year-old resident of Statia, stealing money from a supermarket and a CD player from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and damaging the front door of the police station in Bay Brow, received a nine-year sentence, while Lopes was given four years and six months for the aggravated robbery of a 74-year-old woman.
Both men had appealed the sentences imposed by the Court of First Instance. During the hearing of the appeal on March 11, Redan said he considered the sentence too high and sought help for his psychological problems. Lopes appealed his conviction because he maintained his innocence.
According to a psychiatrist, Redan was suffering from an anti-social personality disorder, but this did not mean that he could not be held accountable for his actions.
His lawyer Zylena Bary had requested mandatory psychiatric treatment for her client. The Joint Court stated, however, that rehabilitation and long-term psychotherapy could only take place during Redan's detention, because placement under a hospital order has not yet been implemented under the Criminal Law of the Netherlands Antilles.
The Joint Court rejected Solicitor General Ton van der Schans' request to apply the law regarding repeat offenders, which stipulates that the Court is obligated to impose at least half of the maximum prison sentence if a suspect has committed another crime within two years after completion of his sentence for a previous similar crime. The maximum sentence for armed robbery is 24 months.
The Appellate Court did not consider it proven that this law should be applied in these two cases. During the handling of his case, Redan had stated that he was released in June/July 2006, while the attempted robbery was committed on August 20, 2008, which means that the two-year period mentioned in the law had already been exceeded.
The Court also let Lopes off the hook. Although he was sentenced in 2007 to three years for mistreatment with a weapon, the High Court has stipulated that the law on repeat offenders would not be applicable in cases of assault with a weapon.
Lopes' lawyer Bert Hofman had pleaded for acquittal for lack of evidence. He claimed his client had an alibi because a witness had stated that Lopes had been at Happy City Corner at the time when the senior woman was robbed. The Joint Court, however, dismissed this statement as being unreliable.
