Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A self-em­ployed tech­ni­cian who swin­dled a San Fer­nan­do priest of $1,800 un­der the guise of pur­chas­ing au­to parts on his be­half was yes­ter­day jailed for 90 days. Win­field Charles, 52, claimed he did not in­tend to take the mon­ey but, he hit a patch of "hard times" and used the cash. Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar, pre­sid­ing in the San Fer­nan­do Fourth Court, did not ac­cept Charles' ex­cuse and sen­tenced him to serve 90 days. "How could you steal from a priest? It is bad enough to take mon­ey from some­one else," she lament­ed. Charles, of Rush­worth Street, San Fer­nan­do, was ar­rest­ed by Cpl Hay­den Man­war­ring.

The charge laid against him stat­ed that dur­ing the pe­ri­od Sep­tem­ber 14 and No­vem­ber 30, 2010, at San Fer­nan­do he, Charles, fraud­u­lent­ly con­vert­ed for his own use $1,800 en­trust­ed to him by Canon Fran­cis An­tho­ny Cae­sar for the pur­chase of mo­tor ve­hi­cle parts. Charles plead­ed guilty to the charge. Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Robin Ram­per­sad told the court that around 11 am on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2010, Charles of­fered to as­sist Canon Cae­sar, who is based at the St Paul's An­gli­can Church, Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, with the pur­chase of ve­hi­cle parts. Cae­sar gave Charles $1,800 with the in­struc­tion to re­turn some­time lat­er that day. How­ev­er Charles did not re­turn. The priest could not get in con­tact with Charles on the tele­phone num­ber he gave him.

Cae­sar met Man­war­ring and made a re­port. On No­vem­ber 30 the of­fi­cer went to Rush­worth Street, San Fer­nan­do where he met Charles and told him of the re­port. Charles, the court heard, said: "Of­fi­cer the priest re­al­ly give me the mon­ey. Things was hard and I spent it." Ram­per­sad said none of the mon­ey was re­cov­ered. When he hand­ed the mag­is­trate the list of Charles's con­vic­tions, which to­talled 24, she said: "You have a book." Charles said: "I made an er­ror... I would like to pay him back." How­ev­er, Chankar said com­pen­sa­tion did not arise.