A 45-year-old man who confessed to being involved in the botched kidnapping and murder of Petit Valley businessman Christopher Aleong in 2003 has been sentenced to 20 years in prison with hard labour. However, Rudy Nelson, a plumber and painter of Boissiere Lane, Belmont, who assisted as a getaway driver for the two gunmen behind Aleong's killing, will only serve four years and five months of the sentence.
In discounting his original sentence, Justice Malcolm Holdip, who was presiding in the Port-of-Spain Second Assizes, considered the almost 102 months that Nelson spent in remand while awaiting trial.Holdip also said Nelson was deserving of another discount of a third of the sentence for his early guilty plea and the remorse he showed after he participated in the crime.
During a short hearing yesterday morning, murder-accused Nelson, through his defence attorney Selwyn Mohammed, pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter. The guilty plea was accepted by state prosecutor Sabrina Dougdeen.Two of Aleong's relatives sat silently in the courtroom while Nelson was being sentenced.
Aleong, 58, the managing director of Albrosco Ltd, was killed in a shoot-out with two gunmen while leaving his Hibiscus Drive, Petit Valley, home, on December 2, 2003.Aleong, the father of six, was the brother of former BWIA CEO Conrad Aleong and magistrate Sonia Aleong.
Holdip told Nelson: "You got caught up with the wrong crowd and you were influenced by peer pressure. You were 35 years old. You were not a youth and should have known better."
According to the facts of the case, which Holdip read out before he passed the sentence, Nelson's role was to drive behind Aleong's car to prevent him from reversing from his driveway on to the road.
Nelson's two accomplices got out of the car and confronted Aleong, who shot at them, Holdip explained. The men returned fire and shot the businessman six times. He died later that day while being treated in hospital.Nelson, who also ran a catering company with his ex-wife, was arrested by police some months later.
Holdip noted that it was only when Nelson was arrested and confessed that investigators were able to solve the case."He was very sorry for what he had done and asked police if he could apologise to Aleong's widow and family," Holdip said.Nelson also told police he was especially remorseful as Aleong treated him kindly when he was hired to paint Aleong's house some months before the bungled kidnapping.
"Reform yourself in prison...Get your hands back in touch with plumbing for when you are released," Holdip advised Nelson after sentencing him.
