Firearm possession nets repeat offender 18 months

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By Today Newspaper

GREAT BAY – After a rather wild story about ill-treatment, threats, sexual intercourse and pregnancy, 26-year old Kevin Chris Leblanc left the courtroom yesterday morning with a conviction for just one charge: firearm possession. Because he is a repeat offender in this field, the court sentenced him to 18 months of imprisonment, 6 months below the demand by the prosecution.

Leblanc left the Pointe Blanche prison on December 29 of last year, after serving time for firearm possession.

A girl who lived with the defendant’s parents accused him of making her pregnant, hitting her, throwing her around the house and choking her to the point that she’d lost consciousness. This allegedly happened shortly after his release at the beginning of January. A couple of days, later, when the defendant was at the home of a cousin on Back street, there was another argument with the girl who claimed to be pregnant from him and angry to boot because she had found messages from other girls on his cell phone. On January 31 there was another confrontation whereby the girl claimed that Leblanc had threatened her with “a small black Glock.”

On February 8, the police saw Leblanc on the street and went after him into his house, where they found a silver-colored Taurus Millennium semi-automatic handgun behind the stove. The defendant has confessed that the weapon belonged to him and that he kept it for self-defense because he’d been shot at in the past.

Leblanc told the court that he had bought the gun shortly after he was released from prison. “I sentenced you early last year for firearm possession,” Judge Maria Paulides said. “and now I hear that yu vbbought another gun immediately after your release.”

Leblanc denied that he had ill-treated or threatened the girl and that she is troubled. “Nobody wants her,” he said.

Prosecutor Lemmers considered firearm possession proven and considered this supporting evidence for the treats against the girl with a gun. She also considered ill-treatment proven, but she considered it impossible that the girl had been pregnant from the defendant so shortly after his release. The prosecutor demanded 24 months of imprisonment.

Attorney Safira Ibrahim noted that her client has denied threatening the girl with the gun or ill-treating her. “There is insufficient proof for the threat and the statement of the victim about the ill-treatment is contradictory.”

Leblanc told the court that, while the girl had spoken about “a small black Glock” his weapon was in fact silver-colored.

The court acquitted Leblanc of the threat and the ill-treatment, but sentenced him for firearm possession.