Corbin asks court for leniency after admitting to cocaine charges

After police stopped him, Devonish Corbin admitted that there were illegal drugs in the white bucket he was carrying, but told the officers he was unsure whether the packages contained cannabis or cocaine.

The Checker Hall, St Lucy resident appeared in the No. 2 Supreme Court on Monday and confessed to having and trafficking seven kilogrammes of cocaine on December 19, 2016.

State Counsel Omar Small, the prosecutor in the case, outlined that acting on information received, officers headed to an area in Sutherland Hill, St Lucy and observed a small fishing boat out to sea. Corbin was its lone occupant.

The officers then went to Half Moon Fort, watched as Corbin got off the boat with a bucket, walked up the beach and then went through a track near a bar/restaurant. They held him and searched the bucket, finding six taped packages which contained cocaine.

“I know drugs in there but I didn’t know if it was cannabis or cocaine” Corbin told the police, adding that he was “to lay low and pass it off tonight”.

In his interview with officers, he said that two men, one of whom he didn’t know, had come to his house and asked him to collect the package.

“He tell me it gine be a lil ganja,” he told the police.

Corbin said he took his boat to the area and saw a blue bucket near a ship. He brought the bucket on board and transferred the packages to his own bucket before heading back to shore. He said the man was to contact him to collect the packages and he didn’t have any contact information for him.

The convicted man then apologised to the court and asked for leniency.

King’s Counsel Andrew Pilgrim, who represents Corbin, requested a pre-sentencing report. Making the order, Justice Randall Worrell adjourned the matter until September 20 when submissions will be heard from the State and the defence on the sentence.