24.5 C
Belize City
Friday, March 29, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Jasmine back at Kolbe

HeadlineJasmine back at Kolbe

BELIZE CITY, Sun. June 27, 2021– Earlier this week, a confrontation between Jasmine Hartin, who is charged for the death of Superintendent of Police, Henry Jemmott, and her now reportedly former partner Andrew Ashcroft, was featured by local media. Since then, Hartin has been slapped with a petty charge of common assault and has had her bail bond revoked, after an application was made to the court for the withdrawal of the cash deposit and the surety by the person who had posted that bail — Frank Habet, General Manager of the Grand Colony Island Villas.

Hartin, who no longer is enjoying the legal representation that had initially been provided to her by the Ashcroft-Alliance attorney Godfrey Smith, has retained the services of well-known criminal defence attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley, but was sent to spend the first night of her second period of confinement at the Belize Central Prison on Friday.

“This is persecution. This is not prosecution,” attorney Dickie Bradley remarked in his comments to the media.

Hartin, who was charged with the negligent manslaughter of Police Superintendent Henry Jemmott, had been granted bail of $30,000 plus a surety of the same amount which, as mentioned earlier, was posted by Frank Habet, General Manager of the Grand Colony Island Villas in San Pedro— the hotel where Hartin formerly resided with her common-law husband and two children.

This week, she left her hideaway provided to her by the Ashcroft Alliance in Cayo and showed up at the Grand Colony, behaving in an unruly manner, according to all reports, and demanding to see her children, who, according to Hartin, have been kept away from her.

While there, she reportedly assaulted one of the hotel’s female employees, who subsequently pressed charges. She was also charged for possession of 0.4 grams of suspected cocaine, with which she was found — after having initially been spared of drug possession charges when she was initially found with a very small amount of cocaine when she was taken into custody by San Pedro police in connection with Supt. Jemmott’s death.

Subsequent to her reported meltdown at the Grand Colony Island Village and her return to Cayo, Hartin was detained by San Ignacio police when she went for her routine sign-in. While Hartin was awaiting detention, 7News reporter Cherisse Halsall conducted an exclusive interview with her inside the police station. During that interview, Hartin shared that she would rather be behind bars than away from her children.

Later, after being transported in the dead of night from the San Ignacio police station to the Queen Street police station in Belize City, she was taken to San Pedro to face the new charges against her in the Magistrate’s Court on the island, where she was granted bail for those minor offenses.

While she was granted bail for those offences, a move was afoot to strip her of the freedom she had secured when she was granted bail for the more serious offence — of manslaughter bu negligence. According to Bradley, Hartin was basically ambushed and given a “go-straight-to- jail card”. Apparently, in a letter that was sent to Justice Herbert Lord, Frank Habet indicated that, in light of Hartin’s conduct when she went to the Grand Colony hotel, and the disturbance she had caused in the presence of guests, he had come to the conclusion that she “is quite capable of not showing up for trial,” and he requested that the surety form he had signed be revoked because he “cannot afford the financial loss, should this occur.”

“In any event, you are in court, we had a duty and we pointed out to the judge, ‘yes, the surety has a right to request that I want to withdraw my thing’. We don’t have a problem with that. You can’t ambush people. Don’t allow that to happen, because what that amounts to is a Monopoly [game] thing called “Go straight to Jail”. That’s what they are doing. When it appeared that our submission to his lordship Herbert Lord, the judge was going to succeed, he appreciates that you can’t ambush people. That is not fair,” Bradley said.

During the court hearing in which Judge Lord reviewed the request for revocation of Hartin’s bail bond, the prosecution highlighted the fact that Hartin had been in court earlier that day, an argument Bradley which said had nothing to do with the application to revoke the bail bond.

“The court has made an order that the gentleman who signed bail has come to the court and asked for it to be withdrawn. The court agrees that they are going to allow him to withdraw,” Bradley later announced.

While the bail sum that was paid has been withdrawn, Hartin’s bail order still stands. She is now tasked with finding someone else to post the bail of 30,000 dollars and a surety of the same amount.

In a brief remark to the media, Hartin said, “I have a lot to say, but I just can’t say it right now, but soon.”

Jasmine Hartin is thus back at the Belize Central Prison for the weekend. While Bradley represented her in her most recent application to the court, Hartin must find someone who is willing to post her bail.

“She now needs to scramble. That part woulda cost more for me to get involved in, that part there. So I just did what I did, and she will use my phone and make calls to one or two persons and hopefully this evening, tomorrow, Sunday –- a person has a right to come out of jail anytime –- morning noon or night,” Bradley said.

He expects her to be imprisoned “for a day or two.”

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International