Hanover man sentenced on cocaine charges
Published:Friday | July 20, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Justice Coordinator
A man who used a false passport to make several trips back to the United Kingdom was sentenced yesterday to 12 months' imprisonment and fined $500,000 after he was held with two pounds of cocaine while he was about to leave the island.
Forty-two-year-old Donovan Costley, who resides in Hanover, pleaded guilty last month when he appeared in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court.
Resident Magistrate Sheron Barnes had put off sentencing until yesterday.
Costley was fined $200,000 or nine months' imprisonment for possession of cocaine and $300,000 or nine months' imprisonment for exporting cocaine. The sentences are to run consecutively if the fines are not paid. In addition, he was given a mandatory sentence of 12 months for exporting cocaine. He was admonished and discharged on the charge of dealing in cocaine.
Forged passport
He also pleaded guilty to uttering a forged passport in the name of Donovan Dwane Stewart and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
If the fines are not paid, Costley will have to serve two and a half years.
Costley, who was deported from the United Kingdom some time ago, was held by Detective Corporal Gregory Wright on June 10 at the Sangster International Airport as he was about to board a flight to London. When searched, packages of cocaine wrapped in plastic were found in the sole of his shoes.
Costley pleaded guilty on his first appearance in court on June 28. Attorney-at-law Martin Thomas, who represented him, requested a social-enquiry report.
The court was told that Costley was deported from the United States many years ago after he was convicted of a crime there. He later went to the United Kingdom and was deported for overstaying. However, he has since been able to make four trips to the UK using a British passport which was falsified.
Thomas, in making mitigation plea, said Costley was employed to a company in London as a cleaner. He said Costley's trip to Jamaica was paid for by a friend who wanted him to conduct business in buying a property here. Thomas said it was after Costley arrived in the island that he was forced to take the cocaine, which he claimed to have received from someone in the airport bathroom.