Fake shopper to pay J$150,000 or face prison

Rodrick Wilson, 45, will have to come up with $150,000 when he returns to the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on June 21 or he will be sentenced to nine months in prison at hard labour.

This follows his May 4 guilty plea to the charge of simple larceny. When he appeared in court yesterday, Parish Court Judge Lori-Ann ColeMontague chastised him for not following the orders she gave him on that date.

“Sir, I told you that the next time you come here, you should be able to tell me what you did with the lady things. So tell me how will the lady get back her things?” Cole-Montague asked.

“I’m going to get my sister in Canada to pay for it, Your Honour, but I don’t think she will pay so much money because she is blind,” said Wilson. On April 25, Wilson reportedly stole the complainant’s handbag containing an iPhone 6s, J$8,000 and a polo T-shirt, valued at $700. Wilson, who met the complainant in Half-Way Tree, said he was looking to do some shopping and accompanied the complainant who volunteered to show him around a store. He then took off with her bag while she was in a fitting room.

She ran into the con man a few days later and demanded her belongings which he could not produce. An argument then developed between the two, which ended at the Half-Way Tree Police Station.

Wilson argued to the judge that “$150,000 is too much, Your Honour, because the phone wasn’t working. She is lying.”

“Sir, let me tell you something. If you never trouble what never trouble you, you wouldn’t be here. So figure how you going to get the lady money,” said Cole-Montague.