A 21-year-old man, who killed a man while wear­ing an an­kle mon­i­tor, has plead­ed guilty to felony mur­der and pos­ses­sion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

Rasheed Mustafa was sen­tenced to a to­tal of 38 years in prison but will serve four years and 11 months af­ter de­duc­tions and time served were tak­en in­to ac­count. He will be re­leased be­fore his 30th birth­day.

Mustafa plead­ed guilty to the of­fences on Sep­tem­ber 17 in a plea-bar­gain­ing agree­ment with the State. He was in­dict­ed on April 17, 2024, and sought to en­ter a plea on Sep­tem­ber 10.

Mustafa, who was 18 at the time of the in­ci­dent, agreed that he killed Jevon Roberts, on Au­gust 24, 2022.

Roberts, of apart­ment 1-2 Harpe Place, Port-of-Spain, was gunned down at Ar­gyle Street, Bel­mont.

Mustafa agreed to a 28-year sen­tence for felony mur­der, which stip­u­lates the death of some­one dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a se­ri­ous crime, but where the in­ten­tion was not to mur­der them ini­tial­ly.

For his guilty plea, two-thirds was de­duct­ed, ar­riv­ing at a ten-year start­ing point. High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh then de­duct­ed time spent in pre-tri­al cus­tody, and a fur­ther two years, four months, and 19 days shaved off, leav­ing the felony mur­der sen­tence to four years, sev­en months and 11 days.

For pos­ses­sion of the gun and am­mu­ni­tion, he was slapped with the start­ing point of a ten-year sen­tence.

Mustafa, who was rep­re­sent­ed by pub­lic de­fend­er Chimere Gib­son-Wa­di, had sev­en years shaved off that sen­tence, three for his guilty plea, an­oth­er three for good char­ac­ter, and one year for the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors.

The fi­nal pun­ish­ment af­ter the dis­count was a two-year sen­tence. With time spent in pre-tri­al cus­tody, he was con­sid­ered to have al­ready paid his debt to so­ci­ety.

The ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tors against Mustafa were that he act­ed in con­cert with two oth­ers, and a weapon was used in the of­fence. At the time the crime oc­curred, he was out on bail.

His mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors stat­ed that from the age of 14, he had to en­dure cir­cum­stances that forced him to re­sort to plant­i­ng to sur­vive, sell­ing pro­duce, and un­der­go­ing con­tract­ing work.

The pro­ba­tion re­port, which was sub­mit­ted to the court as part of the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, added that there was no ev­i­dence to sug­gest he ex­hib­it­ed any an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour. It al­so stat­ed that he took part in pro­grammes whilst in prison.

Mustafa al­so did not breach the prison rules, and re­port­ed­ly has a plan on what to do when he is re­leased from prison, the re­port claimed. He al­so ex­pressed re­morse and was a man of good char­ac­ter.

Mustafa was ar­rest­ed in May 2023, af­ter CCTV footage and an­kle mon­i­tor­ing records were re­viewed. At the time of the killing, Mustafa was out on bail for an­oth­er of­fence and had an an­kle mon­i­tor­ing de­vice on as a con­di­tion of his bail.

Ac­cord­ing to the agreed-on facts based on the plea agree­ment, when Mustafa was ar­rest­ed and shown the CCTV footage and the records of his pres­ence at the scene of the killing, he said: “Of­fi­cer, way boy, ste­ups.”