Two men sentenced
for assault, battery
PHILIPSBURG--Two men were sentenced by the Court of First Instance Thursday for assault and battery.
Victor Arrendongo Contreras (36) was sentenced to 30 days, 20 of which were suspended, with two years’ probation and 40 hours of community service, for having assaulted his former girlfriend.
The Dominicano was charged with having tried to strangle his former girlfriend on September 13, after he found out that the woman with whom he had had a relationship for seven years was seeing another man. Reports had it that he had strangled her until she had lost consciousness and had tried to kill her, but he denied this and stated that he had never had the intention to kill.
Prosecutor Rienk Mud acknowledged that the incident had not been as serious as it had looked initially. He therefore dropped the manslaughter charge and said he would seek a conviction on the lesser charge of assault.
The Prosecutor asked for a relatively mild sentence of 30 days, 20 of which to be suspended, with two years’ probation and 80 hours of community service, and requested that the judge ban Arrendongo Contreras from contact with his former girlfriend.
Mud said he had decided on such a lenient demand because Arrendongo Contreras, who had already spent 10 days in preliminary detention, had acted on impulse and had a clean criminal record.
Godfried Busby (47) of Curaçao was sentenced to 90 days, 71 of which were suspended, with two years’ probation and 80 hours of community service, for having beaten a man in St. Eustatius on September 9.
Busby had sought redress after he had been fired by a local contractor. According to him, a colleague of his had laughed about that and that was reason for him to retaliate. When he saw his former colleague on the terrace of a local establishment, Busby stormed at his foe, threw a table aside and dealt his opponent two severe blows that broke the man’s jaw in three places.
Busby, who has a reputation of being a nuisance in Statia, had told the police that his ex-colleague had been harassing him for months.
His lawyer pleaded for leniency and requested that the court reduce the community service and reject the prosecutor’s demand for payment of (unsubstantiated) damages.
Judge Rick Smid indeed rejected the damage claim, reduced the demand of 120 hours of community service to 80 hours, but followed the prosecutor where the prison sentence was concerned.
