Maloney to pay $6 000 in compensation

A St Michael man who threw a rock through the windshield of a woman’s car before stealing the vehicle and assaulting a man while trying to rob him has three months in which to pay his victims $3 000 each or face a three-year stint at Dodds Prison.

In addition, Justice Randall Worrell ordered Romario Saniel Maloney of Monroe Road, Haggatt Hall, to also pay a $3 000 fine to the court within that three-month period or be jailed for three years.

Maloney had previously admitted, along with another man, to robbing Danielle Bullen of a car, a bag, a purse and $1 500, all valued at $33 093, on July 7, 2017, and to assaulting Julian Lashley and attempting to rob him of a gold chain on the same date.

Bullen had been driving near the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium when she heard a loud noise and glass fell on her. She stopped the vehicle after realising something had broken her windshield and saw two masked men standing outside the vehicle. They ordered her from the car and robbed her before driving off with the vehicle.

Later that same evening, Lashley was walking along Culloden Road when a car drove past him and stopped. When he went to urinate, he felt someone tug at his chain. He struggled with the person who ran back to the car without the jewellery.

Bullen’s car was seen by police on Pine Road near to Parkinson Memorial Secondary School a few hours after the incident, and Maloney emerged from the compound. He was stopped and questioned and eventually admitted to the incidents.

Reappearing in Supreme Court No. 2. on Friday, Maloney, a first-time offender, apologised to Bullen, who was present, and said he would try his best to pay her back.

Justice Worrell informed him that the incidents were very serious and had crossed the custodial sentence threshold. Still, the court, in listening to both the prosecution and the defence had determined that it would not impose such in Maloney’s case.

“You all are lucky that nothing more happened to Ms Bullen because she could have sustained serious injury due to the manner in which that stone was thrown through her windshield,” the judge said.

Maloney was represented by attorneys Frederick Alleyne and Fay Burke, while Principal State Counsel Oliver Thomas represented the State.