Fourteen years requested in
Leroy Carty murder appeal
PHILIPSBURG--Fourteen years behind bars was the firm demand of the Attorney General in his appeal handled by the Joint Court of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba of the case against four young men held equally responsible for the murder of Leroy Carty.
Carty was shot dead in a Back Street crack house on September 17, 2006.
The Prosecutor’s Office considered it proven that all four suspects, Luochino Thomas (23), Sherwin Lake (19), Rumon Balborda (23), and Gerraldo Scott (19) had committed attempted manslaughter, and requested the same sentence as in the Court of First Instance.
The four had gotten away with mild sentences in January, when only Balborda was found guilty of attempted manslaughter for firing the shot that killed Carty. The other three got away with 12-month prison sentences for the possession of an illegal firearm.
The Prosecutor’s Office launched an appeal against these sentences and took the same position as four months ago.
Leroy Carty (17) was shot in the neck at the back of the former Everything Cool store on Front Street. One day earlier, he allegedly had been involved in the mistreatment of Scott’s sister. Carty allegedly had been a member of a rival group of youths that not only had attacked Scott’s sister, but had also been involved in a brawl and several incidents during which shots were fired.
That fatal night in September 2007, the four suspects went looking for the persons they held responsible for these attacks, to settle the matter. Three of the suspects pointed at Balborda as the man who had fired the fatal shot from a shotgun with a long barrel.
Balborda said the others were lying and that Scott had done it. He said the others were trying to pin the murder on him although he had been in the United States, where he was arrested almost a year after the incident.
Balborda’s lawyer Ellen Knoppel also stated that Scott had killed Carty. She said he was the only one with a motive, because Carty had mistreated his sister.
All of the suspects’ lawyers stated that their clients had not had the intention to kill.
Attorney Zylena Bary told the Appeal Court that Carty was not the victim of a gang war, and underlined that the people involved were group of good friends, acquaintances and relatives. She said Scott should be acquitted of manslaughter because he had not fired the fatal shot. She further said it could not be proven that he had known in advance that something bad was to happen.
Attorney Ralph Richardson also said this case did not concern a gang-related fight, but an incident among friends and relatives in the Back Street area that had gotten out of hand. He stated that the case file did not indicate that Thomas had threatened, mistreated or killed the victim. He said his client, who suffers from a heart ailment, should be acquitted because the shot had been fired accidentally.
“Sherwin Lake never wanted the death of Leroy Carty, his former classmate at Oranje School,” said attorney Bert Hofman. “He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He told the Court his client had not been aware of what was going on that night because he had only been hitching a ride home. He added that his client had not played an active role in the confrontation with Carty and had distanced himself from the incident.
Hofman came to the conclusion that it could not be proven that Lake deliberately had wanted to kill Carty, and that he could not be considered an accomplice in the killing.
The Court of Appeal will hand down its decision on May 27.
