Mother of two returned to jail in firearms case

| 11/02/2016 | 16 Comments
Cayman News Service

Cayman courts, Grand Cayman

(CNS): A 27-year-old local mother was returned to jail Tuesday to serve out a two-year term following a gun conviction. Julia Lewis was not just a defendant but a key witness in a case against two West Bay men, who were both jailed for ten years Tuesday for possession of a loaded pistol. Jordan Manderson (22) and Albert Jackson (22) were given the mandatory minimum sentences after at a trial last year, in which Lewis testified the gun she had tried to throw into a rubbish bin had been with Jackson when he picked her up from work, with Manderson already in the car.

Lewis was sentenced by the judge on the basis of exceptional circumstances and she avoided the eight-year term she had faced before she testified against the two men. Having already served around eight months on remand after she pleaded guilty, she was released on bail when she agreed to testify against her co-defendants, who both said the gun belonged to Lewis and not them. Despite the best efforts of her attorney to bring the sentence down to just one year so that the mother of two young children would not have to return to custody, Justice Michael Mettyear stuck to a two-year term and chose not to suspend the sentence.

He acknowledged that Lewis never wanted any dealings with the gun and she was acting in fear of both men when she gave several false accounts to the police in the wake of her arrest. He said her contact with the weapon was seconds rather than minutes and she had acted as she did to distance herself from the pistol and made “a rash judgment”.

Justice Mettyear said he formed a positive view of Lewis during the trial and said he was sure she regrets her part in this episode. However, he raised concerns that after she had thrown the weapon into bushes behind Foster’s Supermarket, because the security guard had stopped her from throwing it in a waste bin, she showed Manderson where the pistol was.

The judge said he was convinced that Manderson had every intention of retrieving the gun and, had things worked out differently, the weapon might still be on the streets posing a threat. He described what Lewis did as “very serious conduct” because she had directed “a dangerous man to where a gun was”, making it impossible that she could escape a jail term.

Lewis found herself facing the firearms charges when Jackson, who was driving her car, crashed after attempting to evade police in August 2013 at Countryside Shopping Village in Savannah. Lewis told the court she knew nothing of the gun when it was produced by Jackson during the drive from Governor’s Square on the West Bay Road. But after the crash, the gun, which Jackson had in his lap, slid to the floor and Lewis threw it out of the car window, setting off a chain of events that saw her tell a number of lies before she was charged.

Jordan and Jackson were also arrested at the time but neither of the men were charged as they denied any knowledge of the weapon. With CCTV evidence pointing to Lewis, she was the only one charged until she agreed to tell the truth about what happened.

The incident began when Jackson had picked up a drunk Manderson in West Bay as he headed to collect Lewis,with whom he was in a relationship at the time. On the way he crashed into another vehicle and left the scene but the driver he hit alerted police. A police patrol then spotted the car in Savannah but Jackson sped off when the officer tried to pull the car over and crashed into a light pole.

Jackson got out and ran off, leaving Manderson and Lewis by the car. After she tossed the weapon from the car, the gun was in the middle of the road and Manderson told Lewis to hide it in the back of her jeans. Instead, she ran across to the shopping plaza and tried to throw it in the garbage, when she was intercepted by a security guard.

She pleaded with him to give her the weapon back, which he did. She then threw the gun into bushes behind Foster’s and when Manderson turned up in another vehicle driven by friends, she showed him where it was. The court also heard that despite taking the loaded pistol from the garbage, the security guard did not keep the weapon nor did he contact the authorities. After Lewis pleaded with him that she did not want to go to jail, he handed it back to her but he was never arrested.

When Manderson’s sentence was considered, his lawyer argued that there were exceptional circumstances for the young West Bay man, based on his severe learning difficulties. The attorney said that the 22-year-old man had the IQ of an eight year old and was described as being on the higher end of the retardation scale by a psychiatrist. However, the judge was not persuaded and handed Manderson the ten-year mandatory term.

Meanwhile, Jackson, who has a string of violent convictions, could only appeal to the mercy of the court. Despite his rap sheet the judge did not increase the mandatory tariff and he, too, received a ten-year term.

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Category: Courts, Crime

Comments (16)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Great, Cayman is now jailing those with the mental age of children as if they were fully competent adults. Way to go Victorian justice!

  2. Anonymous says:

    these two finally get a slice of the karma pie. they are better off the streets, Austin has been involved in two murder cases and also has Jordan. no matter how long it took, karma is here to serve you two.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Mother of two – irrelevant.

    How many times are fathers of 1,2,3…..9,10 etc. banged up in Northward?

    If you can’t do the time (and don’t give a ticker’s about your children until it comes to sentencing), don’t do the crime.

  4. Anonymous says:

    WTF what kind of security guard is that , he has the firearm and he gives it back . I guess he has no knowledge of the laws of the island. He could have called his company if he did not know what to do,or the RCIPS. I guess u get what u pay for.

  5. Anonymous says:

    CNS – I am disappointed! Why do you mention the fact that someone is a mother when a female is convicted, however, there is no mentioning over how many children a male has sired when he is thrown into jail? Do you share and support the view of so many on Island that mothers have responsibility to raise their children and men can be in and out of the picture as they please without it having an affect on the children? Is there more expectation on a female than a male when it comes to parenting?

    If the title is supposed to evoke empathy for the mother, please don’t. If someone has children (male or female) they should be held to an even hire standard as they have the responsibility for another life (or lives), and as such, their illegal actions do not just affect them, but also ruin the lives of their children.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Another example of guilty by association

  7. Anonymous says:

    GOOD, I think the judge was very fair in this case. Plus, Jordan Manderson IS a repeat offender, and having stood trial for murder and many other serious offenses (although somehow getting away with it magically each time – and then bragging about it on social media after!!!!) he should never see daylight again.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Deportation order?

    • Anonymous says:

      She is a Caymanian Jack A$$

    • lee says:

      They’re all caymanians stupid

      • Anonymous says:

        I’ll tell you what is stupid. Being unable to identify sarcasm. That is stupid. In future do yo want people to put in brackets “(I am being sarcastic here just so the stupid people do not get too confused).”?

        • Anonymous says:

          @8:34am What is stupid and ignorant is you calling others stupid for being unable to determine another individuals intention, simply by reading two words that they posted as a comment.Those two words ” Deportation order/” could have been from someone who genuinely wanted to know if such an order was made, or they could have been posted by someone who knew that was not the case but rather wanted to insult Caymanians.If you expect others to read your mind and know your intention, then here’s your sign.Stupid. Fyi sarcasm is a message best delivered orally.

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