Sascha?Wil­son

A pen­sion­er, who on the eve of his 66th birth­day plead­ed guilty to steal­ing vi­t­a­mins and de­odor­ant on Mon­day, was placed on $3,000 bond for two years.

In his de­fence Michael Williams claimed he need­ed the vi­t­a­mins to strength­en his body in prepa­ra­tion for a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure.

Williams, a shoe­mak­er, ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Fourth Court Mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert.

He was ar­rest­ed and charged by PC Mathu­ra with steal­ing the items from Massy Stores, La Ro­maine, on Oc­to­ber 21.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Kr­ish­na Be­dassie told the court Williams tried to leave the su­per­mar­ket with a plas­tic bag con­tain­ing eight bot­tles of Gillette and Se­cret de­odor­ant, four con­tain­ers of Sev­en Seas cap­sules and two bot­tles of Neovi­ta cap­sules worth $1,310.12. He did not pay for the items.

The pros­e­cu­tor said Williams told Mathu­ra: "Boss, I go­ing for op­er­a­tion and I take the stuff. Of­fi­cer I ain't rob no­body. This is a lar­ce­ny. I will spend a 30 days and I will come out and hit a next store."

Williams, how­ev­er, de­nied mak­ing the ut­ter­ances and steal­ing all the items.

He said: "I on­ly steal four of the items, one Sev­en Seas and three roll-on... and they put all what was in the trol­ley in the bag. That is bad. I does suf­fer with this thing (point­ing to his groin area)."

How­ev­er, the mag­is­trate said giv­en his long crim­i­nal his­to­ry span­ning from 1997 to last year when he was charged with lar­ce­ny, Alert said she be­lieved he made the ut­ter­ances to the po­lice.

The fa­ther of three said he lived with his preg­nant daugh­ter and his three grand­chil­dren in Ch­agua­nas. He said he did not ask his fam­i­ly for as­sis­tance be­cause he did not want to ha­rass them.

Asked why he took the de­odor­ant off the shelves, Williams said when he came out of a maxi he stum­bled and ac­ci­dent­ly broke a ve­hi­cle's mir­ror and the own­er told him it would cost $600 to fix.

"I told him I know some­body at Massy Store. When I got there I just start to take up things bold­faced, bold­faced," he said.

"You ac­cus­tom weav­ing sto­ries," the mag­is­trate told him.

How­ev­er, she said he had a few things in his favour, in­clud­ing his age and he plead­ed guilty.

Alert said she on­ly con­sid­ered his 2015 con­vic­tions as it was the on­ly one that fell with­in the ten-year pe­ri­od.

Telling him he was in­tel­li­gent enough to find a le­git­i­mate way to buy vi­t­a­mins, the mag­is­trate warned Williams that if he breached his bond he will serve three months in prison.