Two men jailed over illegal automatic guns and drugs

(CNS): Two local men in unrelated cases were jailed this week after admitting to possession of illegal guns modified into automatic weapons and significant quantities of drugs. Jay Calvert Ebanks (31), a local boat captain from Savannah, was given eight years and nine months for possession of a gun converted from a semi-automatic to a fully automatic pistol. Mitchell Chean Ebanks (55) from West Bay was handed a nine-year term for possession of a 9mm submachine with an auto sear that converted it into an automatic weapon.

In the first case, police found the unlicensed gun, ammunition and more than ten ounces of cocaine in Jay Ebanks’ vehicle during a traffic stop. As she handed down the sentence, Justice Cheryll Richards noted that Ebanks was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2020 and requires regular medical infusions to control the degenerative disease.

Starting at 14 years, the judge reduced the sentence to nine years for his guilty pleas and shaved off more time to account for the increased difficulties he will now face behind bars given his serious medical condition, arriving at an overall sentence of eight years and nine months.

Mitchell Ebanks was charged after police raided his West Bay home earlier this year and found the unlicensed firearm in a backpack and more than eleven ounces of cocaine in the man’s closet. Ebanks claimed he had found the bag on the beach in East End.

As a drug user, he had decided to take it home but had been unsure what to do with what was described in court as a ghost gun with no serial number, the sear, a high capacity magazine and ammunition that was also in the bag.

Ebanks, who has a long rap sheet mainly relating to drug offences, pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. As a result, he was given the full discount of one-third for his guilty pleas on the mandatory minimum for the possession of an illegal gun. However, that seven years was increased by the judge because of the drugs and high capacity magazines, leading to a total sentence of nine years.

Justice Richards said that gun crime is the “scourge of the Caribbean, and the Cayman Islands have not escaped the trend”. She said that although these guns had no connection to any crimes, the mandatory minimum sentence set by the legislature was to send a message about the dangers of guns, and both these dangerous weapons “could have gotten into very dangerous hands”.