September 11 court date for Dutchman on cocaine charges

WESTERN BUREAU:

Patrick Crawford, the Dutch national who was arrested on May 9 for attempting to smuggle $28.3 million worth of cocaine out of Jamaica, pleaded guilty to the charges against him, and is to be sentenced on September 11.

Crawford, a 44-year-old carpenter of a Rotherdam address, in Holland, was given the sentencing date in the St James Parish Court on Thursday, after he pleaded guilty before presiding parish judge Natiesha Fairclough-Hylton to the charges of possession of, dealing in, and attempting to export nine pounds of cocaine. During the brief hearing of Crawford’s case, his attorney, Henry McCurdy, requested that a social enquiry report be prepared for the defendant ahead of his sentencing.

“I will ask for a social enquiry report and a date for sentencing,” McCurdy told Judge Fairclough-Hylton after Crawford entered his guilty plea to the charges.

“September 4 or 11?” Fairclough-Hylton asked, in offering possible sentencing dates for Crawford.

“September 11,” McCurdy replied.

“Sentencing will be on September 11, 2024. A social enquiry report is requested, as well as the Criminal Records Office [CRO] report,” Fairclough-Hylton told Crawford before he was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom.

According to reports, on May 9 at about 5 p.m., Crawford attempted to board a flight to Brussels, Germany at the Sangster International Airport, in Montego Bay.

As he was checking in, Crawford was approached and spoken to by narcotics personnel, following which his luggage was searched. The cocaine was reportedly found in false compartments inside his luggage. Crawford was arrested for breaching the Dangerous Drugs Act.

Crawford first appeared before the St James Parish Court on May 20, and was remanded in custody after his attorney McCurdy did not seek bail for him due to the defendant not being a Jamaican citizen and having no ties to the island.

The case was brought back before the court on June 10, and at that time, Crawford complained about the untidy state of the holding area, where he was being kept, and the failure of the police to allow him to get medical attention. He was subsequently hospitalised hours before another scheduled court appearance on June 24.

His last court date before Thursday’s sitting was on Wednesday, when the case was put off as the forensic certificate was reportedly absent from the prosecution’s case file.

Crawford’s case is one of several cocaine-related cases, involving foreign nationals, that has come up before the St James Parish Court in recent months.

The cases include that of Sianece Clarke-Johnson, a British woman who was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on June 26 for trying to smuggle $7.6 million worth of cocaine out of Jamaica inside a number of craft items on February 26; and Faina Rwenhamo, another British national who was sentenced on July 17 to pay a fine of $400,000 or to spend six months in prison for trying to smuggle $7.5 million worth of cocaine inside craft items on June 16.