MONTEGO BAY, St James - Pauline Morrison, a 41 year-old Kingston restaurant owner, was on Monday fined $26,000 and given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court after pleading guilty to trying to export just under four pounds of ganja to Curacao.

Morrison, a mother of three, was arrested on March 2 at the Sangster International Airport when sniffer dogs detected the weed in her luggage.

The court heard that Morrison was being processed to board a flight to Curacao when the dogs alerted their handlers to her brown and blue suitcase. She was summoned and after identifying the bag as hers, it was opened in her presence and a smaller suitcase found in it.

When the smaller suitcase was opened, it was found to have a secret compartment where the police found 3.75 pounds of ganja hidden.

Attorney-at-law Adrian Dayes, who represented Morrison, begged the court not to impose a custodial sentence. Dayes told the court that her client, who operated a restaurant at Red Hills Road, Kingston, was faced with school fees for the two of her three children, one of whom was enrolled in a tertiary institution and, the other, in high school and about to sit external examinations.

The attorney told the court his client had pulled herself up from humble beginnings, from pushing a hand cart, selling her products to opening up her own restaurant and had not received any help from the father of the two older children.
The lawyer told the court that she had planned to go to Curacao to buy clothes to sell and someone had made the offer and promised to pay her US$500.

Dayes told the court his client had no idea what was in the bag.
She was fined $6,000, or three months, for possession and $20,000, or three months, for taking steps to export ganja.
In addition, she was given a six-month sentence on both counts. The jail sentence will be suspended for two years.

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