A KINGSTON businessman was yesterday fined $200,000 or six months imprisonment after pleading guilty to receiving two stolen heavy-duty generators belonging to Cable and Wireless and Digicel.
In addition to being fined, 53-year-old businessman Lynford Johnson, operator of Johnson's Petroleum Company Ltd., 34 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5, was also sentenced to two years imprisonment but the sentence was suspended for three years. This means that if Johnson is convicted of any offence within the next three years, he will have to serve the two-year prison sentence.
He was charged with larceny of the generators and receiving stolen property but he pleaded not guilty to the larceny charges.
One of the generators belonged to Cable and Wireless and the other to Digicel and were valued at $1.2 million each.
BUSINESSPLACE RAIDED
Johnson was arrested and charged last week Thursday when policemen from the Organised Crime Unit raided his businessplace and found the generators.
The police reported that between September and July this year, a total of 15 generators were stolen from various cell sites belonging to Cable and Wireless and Digicel.
So far, three of them have been recovered. One was found in St. Ann this year but no arrest has yet been made.
Attorney-at-law Vincent Wellesley, who represented Johnson, pleaded with Senior Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle not to send Johnson to prison.
The RM, in passing sentence in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court, told Johnson that he was very lucky that he did not get a custodial sentence.
