A 30-year-old father of two was on Friday slapped with a narcotics trafficking charge that arraigned him before Georgetown Magistrate Leron Daly.
Ras Paris denied the charge, which stated that on March 29, 2017, at North Ruimveldt Georgetown, he had in his possession 908 grams of cannabis for the
Ras Paris
purpose of trafficking.
In a bail application, defense attorney Mark Waldron told the court that his client’s home was searched but no narcotics were found in his possession. According to the lawyer, during the course of the raid, a member of the search party alerted the others to the presence of some plastic bag containing a substance suspected to be the illicit drug, which was discovered in an alley behind Paris’s premises.
Waldron argued that it would be unreasonable to draw the inference that the narcotics found in a place over which the accused had no control belonged to the accused.
The Prosecution’s case, however, disputed the attorney’s position. The prosecution asserted that the cannabis was found concealed in a black plastic bag in the kitchen area of the home, and that another set was discovered in an area behind the house.
Paris’s lawyer contested this information, contending that the premises houses multiple occupants with regard to the first set of marijuana unearthed in the kitchen; thus ownership cannot be attributed to his client. He iterated that the second find does not amount to possession by the accused, maintaining that there is no nexus between the two finds, and that it is unreasonable to combine the separate parcels in order to initiate one charge against his client.
Paris was granted $200,000 bail, and the case has been adjourned to April 21.
