So­ca artiste Rod­ney “Ben­jai” Le Blanc in­tends to sue the State for be­ing pros­e­cut­ed for us­ing ob­scene lan­guage to­wards po­lice of­fi­cers. 

Le Blanc sig­nalled his in­tent as he was found not guilty of the charge, stem­ming from an in­ci­dent in St James in Feb­ru­ary 2023, by Se­nior Mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne on Thurs­day. 

In a state­ment, Le Blanc said that he was grate­ful that jus­tice pre­vailed, as he al­ways main­tained his in­no­cence. 

“I have been to­tal­ly vin­di­cat­ed by the find­ings of the learned mag­is­trate, and this out­come reaf­firms my be­lief in the jus­tice sys­tem when it works as it should,” Le Blanc said. 

“I am thank­ful that this chap­ter is now be­hind me, and I look for­ward to mov­ing on with my life and fo­cus­ing on the fu­ture,” he added. 

Le Blanc sug­gest­ed that he would be tak­ing fur­ther le­gal ac­tion based on the out­come of the case. 

“I do not in­tend to let this case rest. I will be ac­tive­ly seek­ing jus­tice for the wrong that was done to me by the of­fi­cers in­volved. What hap­pened to me should not hap­pen to any­one,” Le Blanc said. 

Le Blanc was ar­rest­ed and charged on Feb­ru­ary 21, 2023. 

A group of po­lice of­fi­cers claimed that they were walk­ing near the cor­ner of Benares Street and the West­ern Main Road in St James, when they de­cid­ed to speak to a group of peo­ple they claimed were smok­ing mar­i­jua­na in pub­lic. 

They claimed that Le Blanc, who was seat­ed near the group, in­ter­vened and used ob­scene lan­guage as he re­mind­ed them of a pre­vi­ous in­ci­dent in which he was ac­cused of spit­ting at a po­lice of­fi­cer, who sought to ar­rest him for us­ing ob­scene lan­guage at an event in 2010. 

They al­leged that al­though they warned him against us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, they were forced to ar­rest and charge him as he per­sist­ed. 

Le Blanc, through his lawyers Chase Pe­gus and Danyal Mo­hammed, de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, which he claimed were fab­ri­cat­ed by the po­lice. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Mag­is­trate Quin­tyne said she be­lieved Le Blanc’s ver­sion of the events over the of­fi­cers’.

She ac­cept­ed Le Blanc’s claims that he nev­er men­tioned the pre­vi­ous in­ci­dent with the po­lice and that it was the of­fi­cers who taunt­ed him about it. 

She al­so took is­sue with the fact that al­though the of­fi­cers claimed they made notes about Le Blanc’s ar­rest in two sta­tion di­aries, they on­ly pre­sent­ed ev­i­dence from one of the di­aries dur­ing the tri­al be­fore her. 

She al­so raised con­cerns over the fail­ure of the of­fi­cers to dis­close a video of his ar­rest, which one of­fi­cer ad­mit­ted he record­ed with his cell phone. 

“It caused a great con­cern to the court,” she said. 

On De­cem­ber 18, 2010, Le Blanc was ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent dur­ing his per­for­mance at an event at San Fer­nan­do Hill in San Fer­nan­do.

He was charged with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and as­sault­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer by spit­ting on him. 

Le Blanc plead­ed guilty to the ob­scene lan­guage charge and re­ceived a nom­i­nal fine. He suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged the as­sault charge and was found not guilty in 2014. 

Le Blanc filed a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion and as­sault and bat­tery case, as he claimed that he was as­sault­ed by the ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer while be­ing led away from the event. 

In 2018, Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh up­held his as­sault and bat­tery claim but dis­missed his claim for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.