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Central Village man gets six years for second gun

Published:Monday | March 23, 2020 | 12:26 AMAinsley Walters/Gleaner Writer

FREDRICK ‘Clarks Booty’ Braham, the reputed don of Rocklands, Central Village, St Catherine, was last Friday sentenced to six years in prison for possession of an illegal firearm in 2018 following last month’s four-year conviction for a weapon seized from him in 2012.

Braham had pleaded guilty to two charges of illegal possession of firearm, within two weeks, in the Corporate Area Gun Court.

Having spent more than a year in custody after being captured in December 2018 for absconding bail in 2012 on the first charge, Braham changed his plea to guilty on Tuesday, January 21, when he appeared before Justice Carol Beswick on the first charge.

Police sources said that Braham had been sought for almost a decade in relation to a number of shootings and murders committed in 2009 before absconding in 2012.

Braham was on the run for six years before being held on December 14, 2018, caught with another illegal weapon, by the St Catherine South Special Operations Unit after being the target of dozens of operations launched in search of him.

The predawn raid had triggered demonstrations in ‘China Town’ – a section of Central Village – where roadblocks were mounted by some residents, who claimed him as their “protector”, saying that he was innocent of the allegations.

Braham was charged under multiple identities after giving the investigating officer, Constable Michael Edwards, three different names when held with a 9mm pistol inside his shoe in China Town.

Prior to Braham’s second guilty plea, his attorney, Everton Bird, told the court that his client had instructed him that the police had planted the second gun on him, a claim that the reputed Central Village gangster afterwards retracted when he pleaded guilty before Justice Beswick, saying, “It was my gun.”

Central Village remains closely monitored by the security forces amid a state of emergency blanketing the parish of St Catherine. A joint security-force checkpoint remains near the entrance to Windsor Heights, where lawmen are seeking to break the hold of criminals who have been extorting residents and businesses in the area.

ainsley.walters@gleanerjm.com