Sascha Wil­son

A fish­mon­ger who took a chance by sell­ing five mo­ro­coy tor­tois­es, which are pro­tect­ed an­i­mals, was or­dered to pay the max­i­mum fine of $200 on each count. Or­der­ing Ra­jh Ram­roop, 52, to pay the to­tal fine of $1,000 im­me­di­ate­ly, mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert de­scribed the penal­ty as "woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate."

Ram­roop, of Ota­heite Road, South Oropouche, plead­ed guilty to the five charges in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court. Game war­dens Richard Ram­lo­gan, Ra­jiv Ma­haraj and George Gai­tan were on du­ty at Mara­bel­la mar­ket on Sun­day around 11 am when they saw some­thing mov­ing in two feed bags.

When the war­dens con­front­ed Ram­roop, who was stand­ing next to the bags, he opened them and the war­dens saw the five or­ange-and-yel­low mo­ro­coys, two in one bag and three in the oth­er. Ram­lo­gan charged Ram­roop with hav­ing pro­tect­ed an­i­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty with­out a li­cence.

The game war­dens, along with their col­leagues Steve Seep­er­sad and Andy Singh, took the mo­ro­coys to court yes­ter­day in the feed bags and showed them to the mag­is­trate. Ram­roop took a "fool­hardy chance," af­ter hav­ing a bad week in terms of sell­ing fish, his at­tor­ney Ains­ley Lucky said.

He said Ram­roop bought the mo­ro­coys for $200 each and was go­ing to re-sell them at a marked-up price. How­ev­er, he said, "The ex­hibits are alive and well." Say­ing that Ram­roop was sor­ry, em­bar­rassed and a first-time of­fend­er, Lucky asked for a bond.

Re­ject­ing this re­quest, Alert said the penal­ty for the of­fence was woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate and she would be rub­bing salt in the wound if she bond­ed Ram­roop. Say­ing the court was very pleased with the work of the game war­dens, she said a bond would triv­i­alise the of­fence and un­der­mine the game war­dens' ef­forts.

She im­posed the max­i­mum sen­tence of $200 or $30 days' im­pris­on­ment on Ram­roop on each count. The mag­is­trate re­leased the tor­tois­es in­to the care of the chief game war­den.