Senior Magistrate Leron Daly gave Keino Pluck, who had entered a guilty plea to theft last month, the option to pay the victim right away or go to jail.
The 18-year-old unemployed man from Tucville Squatting Area, Georgetown had confessed that on October 25, at Commerce Street, Georgetown, he stole from the person of Shondel Jones, a 16-pennyweight gold chain valued at $210,000.
Pluck’s mother, who is a single mother of five other children, offered to give Jones $99,000 when the case was called for sentencing on Friday at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
The woman informed the Magistrate that it was her whole savings and that she had even pleaded for assistance from someone in order to raise the amount.
The mother, a sweeper/cleaner by profession, disclosed that she had lately had to make a payment in order to cover her daughter’s exam costs for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC). Jones took the money from her. In brief remarks, Jones told the Magistrate that she had saved money all year to buy the chain for her daughter.
Pluck would have been jailed for three months if his mother had not paid the victim.
Magistrate Daly ordered Pluck to enroll in government-funded literacy and skills training programs, be under probation and social services supervision until he turns 21, apply for public assistance because of his current financial circumstances, and return to Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) to live with his mother, despite the fact that he is now free.
“You have gotten another chance. Please go and correct your behaviour,” Magistrate Daly said to Pluck, who virtually appeared in court. In responding, Pluck told the Magistrate “Thank you”.
Pluck’s father abandoned his mother, causing financial hardship for the family, according to a probation officer. Because of this, he dropped out of school at the age of 14 and moved to Mahdia in quest of employment before moving to Georgetown and staying with a friend.
Reports are that Jones visited the Stabroek Market on October 25 to purchase a chain.
She then left the market, but not before Pluck approached her from a short distance away, grabbed the chain around her neck, and made a hasty retreat on foot.
Jones trailed Pluck as he went, setting off an alert that led to the thief’s arrest by a Police rank.
The chain was, however, not recovered.
When the Magistrate asked Pluck what he did with the chain on Friday, he stated he threw it away in his haste to get away.
Meanwhile, Pluck told a probation officer that he had been frustrated with not being able to find work and had stolen the woman’s necklace.
He stated that he went to Georgetown on the day in question in order to apply for a job at a private company, but he did not receive a positive response.
