An­na-Lisa Paul

So­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano along with en­ter­tain­ers Joel "Zan" Fezeck; song­writer and pro­duc­er Ker­nel Roberts; and Rod­ney "Ben­jai" Le Blanc have been in­volved for the past five years in a court mat­ter. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, they will have to wait a fur­ther two months for its com­ple­tion. The four reap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor in the Port-of-Spain Sev­enth Court yes­ter­day, ex­pect­ing a judge­ment in the mat­ter.

In­stead, the mag­is­trate told the en­ter­tain­ers, their sup­port­ers who packed the court­room, state and de­fence at­tor­neys that she need­ed more time to con­sid­er the ev­i­dence. The quar­tet last ap­peared on May 6, when Ba­boolal in­di­cat­ed she would need three months to re­view the ev­i­dence and would de­liv­er a de­ci­sion on Sep­tem­ber 14.

Mon­tano, the 2012 Road March champ, Pow­er So­ca Monarch and Groovy So­ca Monarch, is joint­ly charged with fel­low artistes Fezeck, Roberts and Le Blanc of as­sault­ing Rus­sell Pol­lon­ais and Bran­dis Brown. Mon­tano, 37, al­so faces ad­di­tion­al charges of as­sault­ing Janelle Lee Chee and Ger­ard Bowrin, and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage. The charges stem from a fra­cas out­side the night­club at Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, on April 26, 2007.

The tri­al be­gan in 2008, but it will not be un­til late No­vem­ber that the four will know their fate. Call­ing the mat­ter at 10:01 am yes­ter­day, Ba­boolal-Gafoor apol­o­gised for not de­liv­er­ing the judge­ment as she was still "ob­vi­ous­ly care­ful­ly con­sid­er­ing all the ev­i­dence." Be­fore ad­journ­ing the mat­ter, the mag­is­trate con­sult­ed de­fence at­tor­neys Dana See­ta­hal, SC; Ra­jiv Per­sad and Kei­th Scot­land, as well as pros­e­cu­tor, George Bus­by to en­sure that No­vem­ber 23 was con­ve­nient. Af­ter the at­tor­neys con­sult­ed with their clients who re­mained seat­ed in the pris­on­er's dock, the mat­ter was ad­journed to No­vem­ber 23 at 10 am.