Guilty verdict after 10 years

PORT-OF-SPAIN – Nearly ten years after being discharged by former High Court judge and now Justice Minister, Herbert Volney, on charges relating to million worth of cocaine and a gun and ammunition, Rick Anthony Gomes was found guilty of the same charges Saturday.Gomes, 47, is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday before Justice Gillian Lucky at the Port-of-Spain Assizes. Lucky said she needed time to look at the various types of sentencing before determining an appropriate sentence for Gomes.While he was being escorted by police out of the courtroom, Gomes hurled obscenities at the jury and two police officers who were the complainants in the matter.He repeated the insult as he pointed to the complainants in the case while being led towards the prisoner’s holding bay at the basement of the court.Gomes was found guilty by a nine-member jury on all four charges after the jury deliberated for three hours and emerged with a unanimous verdict around 4.p.m., during a special Saturday sitting of the court.When asked by the court if he had anything to say, Gomes replied: “There were never any drugs in my house. That is all I have to say, there were not any drugs at my house.”Special prosecutor Dana Seetahal SC told the court that Gomes had a previous conviction in the United States where he was sentenced by a Florida judge to serve 70 months in prison on charges of possession of cocaine for the purpose of distribution on June 3, 1991.He was convicted Saturday on charges of possession of 18 packets of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking; possession of a .32 revolver and possession of four rounds of .32 ammunition.There were two separate cocaine charges since one of the packets was found inside the trunk of a vehicle that Gomes rented. The other 17 packets were found at his Spanish Villas, Mt Hololo, St Ann’s, home on May 15, 1998, by Organised Crime Narcotics and Firearms Bureau officers.Gomes had been resisting extradition to Trinidad since his arrest in May 2006, saying the conditions of the prisons in Trinidad were appalling, but was ordered extradited to this country earlier this year by a London judge.(Trinidad Express)