A jury has acquitted former Goddard Enterprises sailor Walter Oneal Prescod of three drug charges involving 121.4 kilogrammes of cannabis found aboard the company yacht Ecstasy, ending a case that dominated national headlines in 2018.
Prescod and two Goddard’s board members, then-chairman Charles Herbert and director Christopher Rogers, were arrested and charged in connection with the drugs found aboard the yacht in 2018. A year later, the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges against Herbert and Rogers, citing a lack of evidence.
Prescod was charged with possessing the cannabis within Barbados’ territorial waters, importing it and possessing it for the purpose of trafficking on July 23, 2018.
Following her summation in the No. 4 Supreme Court, the jury took a little over an hour to report to Justice Laurie-Ann Smith Bovell that they had not reached a unanimous decision. The jurors returned a few minutes later with eight-to-one not-guilty verdicts on all three charges.
Leaving the Supreme Court Complex in his wife’s embrace, Prescod declined to make a statement, saying only: “God is good. Have a Merry Christmas”. He then gave reporters a thumbs-up. His defence attorney Sade Harris stated that “It was a lot of hard work but I believe that justice has prevailed in this matter.”
The court heard that Prescod had told police he was responsible for the drugs. He said he needed money to buy expensive cancer medication for his wife and while in Grenada, he had arranged with a man to obtain marijuana to sell to buyers in Barbados.
He said the man picked him up in a jeep, and they went to the dockyard where the yacht was docked for maintenance.
Prescod said: “This was around midday. I helped the guy take the marijuana from the jeep and put it in the vessel. They move four sugar bags, one black bag and four taped packages with the marijuana. The guy placed the marijuana in the area next to the water tanks. He is smaller than I am, so I allowed him to place the marijuana in the areas. After he placed the marijuana in the areas, I locked back up the vessel and we both left.”
He told officers that Rogers and Herbert knew nothing about the marijuana.
The two appeared as State witnesses and told the court they knew nothing about the drugs. Both denied promising Prescod that he could keep his job if he accepted responsibility for the packages.
Opting to make an unsworn statement from the dock, Prescod told the jury that the discovery of the drugs had come as a surprise to him.
He said: “Before we were charged, we were placed in a cell close together. While there, before we were charged, Mr Rogers, in the presence of Mr Herbert, quickly offered me to take the rap, so he could get home. I ask him ‘Why?’ He said something to the effect that he would stupidly give me back my job. Those were the words he said. So I paused for a little while before answering and I said ‘okay’. I say to myself that it would give me some money to help pay bills cause my wife was sick and that would help because I didn’t have the money. So then we were formally charged and now I am here before the court.”
Prescod was represented by defence attorneys Sade Harris and Elan Greenidge, while Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC and Acting Senior State Counsel Paul Prescod prosecuted the case.
(JB)
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