BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - "There are elements of this thing that smack of ridiculousness." This is just a small portion of what His Lordship Justice Darshan Ramdhani told two kidnappers on Thursday (Mar. 13) before handing them their sentences.
Kevin Rogers and Travis Crawford pleaded guilty to two counts each of kidnapping earlier in the Assizes and appeared at the Basseterre High Court for sentencing.
Rogers was represented by Attorney John Cato while Crawford was without legal representation.
The facts of the case, as read by Crown Counsel O'Neil Simpson, are that on the morning of November 2, 2012, the men went to Halfmoon Bay and kidnapped Rogers' wife and her male companion, took them into Basseterre and tried to obtain money from the wife's bank account to send her overseas.
The men were arrested that same morning.
At the sentencing hearing, Rogers told the Court that his intensions were never to hurt the victims. He constantly expressed his love for his wife and stated that he was jealous of her being with another man.
"All I was thinking was to get her back to the States so she could be with her son," he said.
Rogers expressed his remorse for what was done, stating, "if I could turn back the hands of time, I would", because he now sees the damage that was done, not only to the victims but his family as well.
His attorney also spoke for him as well as his mother who said she was disappointed to have learned of her son's actions and added that his depression, which was caused by the breakup of his marriage, led him down that path.
Crawford's Social Inquiry Report described him as a follower who was unable to make decisions for himself. It stated that he was always in trouble with the law because friends took advantage of his simplicity.
"He is easily influenced," it said.
Before passing judgment, an obviously peeved Justice Ramdhani chastised both men for their actions, calling their plan "ridiculous".
In giving an overview of the men's action, the judge said: "You force them out of the house and took them down the road. So you got in town and its close to eight o'clock, Scotia Bank is about to open. You tell the lady to go into the Bank and withdraw $600. Your compadre is there standing along. Mr. Follow Me (Crawford) is there - you always need 'Follow Me(s)' around you...He is standing there silly as he can be outside the Bank.
"This is not an elaborate plan, these masterminds can start a cartoon movie or something. The lady goes into the Bank, the lady is crying...and the two of them are outside waiting for $600 to buy a plane ticket or a cruise to send her on a boat or a plane.
"Having planned it, they got a police uniform, concealed it [and] took it to the house and had some object resembling a gun and had it in their pocket. The lady apparently recognise the thing did not look like a real gun because he keep putting his hand in his pocket...then he says to her 'well it's not a gun, I don't have one but the other man has one'.”
Describing Rogers intention with the $600 as "an amazing thing", the judge said it was unbelievable that "level-headed people" concocted such a plan.
"This is an amazing thing...and he stands here [in Court] and he says that he was going to send her back to her 21-year-old son because that 21-year-old son has a soft spot for him [Rogers] and that that son will put sense into her head and get her to make up back with him.
"What is wrong with you? Something is wrong with him...This is your elaborate plan? There is no evidence that they were drinking, there is no evidence that they were intoxicated or anything of that nature."
Justice Ramdhani said there was the possibility that if Mr. Roland had "resisted some more...God forbid where he would have been today, what kind of trial it would have been, what kind of sentencing this would have been because we could not have foreseen what 'Mr. Follow Me' would have been doing when he [Rogers] went to get the lady from the bedroom.
"What was going on in this man's head, I don't know...Some men need to understand that if they marry a woman it does not mean that they own them. When you marry someone or you enter a relationship with that person, it does not mean that you have the right to dictate their lives from that point onwards.
He told Rogers that his wife not wanting to be with him did not give him "the right to be embarrassed about it to the point where you would want to go and do something to her. Be a man! Be embarrassed in your own head and let it stay right there. If you are upset, sad or grieved or ashamed, let them all remain in your head".
The judge further told Rogers that his actions towards his wife appeared to be one of obsession rather than love, adding that marrying her did not give him ownership of her.
"Some men who get themselves into things like you, something is wrong with that thought process, you need to reshuffle, you need to reconfigure your brain and understand that people have a right to dictate what happens in their lives.
"Marrying someone does not reduce them to being a slave. It does not mean they must now be told when to wake, when to sleep, when to eat, when to run, when to walk. It does not mean any of that, I want you to understand this clearly because you decided, with your sincere approach, that you love this woman so badly and with all the love, you couldn't bear to part with her.
"That's not love, that's some sort of obsession. That's some sort of lust or something...but that's not love. If you love, then let them decide what they want to do for themselves," His Lordship warned Rogers.
He suggested that Rogers "get some counselling in addition to your accounting classes, and you are going to get the time to do it".
He encouraged Crawford to start saying "no" to those who encourage him to engage in wrongful acts, stating "you need to start taking responsibility for your actions, you need to start saying 'no'". He told Crawford that he needed to stop allowing people to tell him what to do.
Justice Ramdhani spoke briefly on this issue of peer pressure and told Crawford "when you give in to peer pressure, you give away a piece of yourself every time".
His Lordship told them that their case "has a unique element of misplaced love and stupidity" which influenced their sentence, but stressed that the use of a police uniform to commit their act was very serious.
Rogers was given four and a half years on each kidnapping count with the time he spent on remand going towards that sentence. Crawford was sentenced to three and a half years on each count, also with the time he spent on remand going towards that sentence.
Both men's sentences are to run concurrently.
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