‘Copious evidence’ dooms gas station robber’s appeal

(CNS): The Cayman Islands Court of Appeal has upheld both the robbery conviction and the 12-year sentence handed down in 2023 to Alvin Shaquille Ebanks, dismissing his in-person appeal because of what the court described as the copious evidence against him. In the ruling published last month, the court found that the sentence given to Ebanks, who appeared without an attorney during last year’s winter session, was far from excessive, and his bid to cut that time was hopeless.

Ebanks, from West Bay, was tried and convicted of robbing the Hell gas station in West Bay in the late evening of 5 December 2022. Evidence against him included an eyewitness and the fact that his DNA was found on the toy gun used in the stick-up.

The local man, who has a long rap sheet, was also wearing an electronic tag at the time of the robbery, as he was on a suspended sentence for an unrelated crime.

On the night of the robbery, the gas station clerk was counting the cash before closing up when a man with a long-sleeved grey, black and white shirt and a blue face covering ran in. His eyes were visible, and the clerk could see that he had brown skin.

As the robber demanded money, the clerk recognised his voice and told the police it was a man he knew as “Sticky”. He said he had been at school with him, and although he had not seen him for a while, he had known him for some 14 years.

Ebanks was armed with a toy gun, which he used to hit the gas station attendant several times, breaking it and slightly injuring him. Havng taken about $2,200, he left with another man in a Honda Civic that had a white front bumper. The entire incident was captured on CCTV. When the police arrived, they seized the broken parts of the toy gun that Ebanks had left behind.

The police went to Ebanks’ home on Vibe Lane, West Bay, but he was not home. However, they noticed some clothes in the bushes in the lot across the road, including a blue mask and a grey, black and white shirt, just like the clothes worn by the robber in the CCTV footage. After that, the police returned to Ebanks’ yard, where they found a partially burned box for a toy gun and more clothing.

Later that same evening, an abandoned burnt-out silver Honda Civic with a white front bumper that had been stolen earlier that day and which the crown said was the robbery car was found on Hetty’s Lane, a short distance from Ebanks’ home. The clothing and mask were tested for DNA and were later matched to Ebanks.

He was arrested the following day but denied being involved in the robbery, pointing to the electronic monitor on his ankle. However, when the GPS tracking system was checked at the time of the robbery and for some time after it, no signal had been received from the tag, implying that Ebanks had probably covered the device with foil, blocking the signal.

When Ebanks appealed, he did not submit any grounds but made a number of submissions that his trial was not right and his defence attorney, Keith Myers, did not do what he was told to do. He argued that the timing of the robbery was “all confusing”, and he did not know what was going on with the monitor as it should have shown he was at home.

However, the court found that the judge’s directions to the jury were impeccable. The jury was entitled to conclude that Ebanks was lying when he said he had not worn the clothing and the mask with his DNA on it. The panel was also entitled to conclude that the box found near his home had contained the imitation firearm used in the robbery, and the burnt-out Honda in the vicinity of his home was additional evidence against him.

“In short, this was an overwhelming case,” the appeal court said, adding that Ebanks’ submissions were “without merit”. They also refused to reduce the 12-year sentence, given the seriousness of the offence and the aggravating factors, including his previous convictions. At the time of the robbery he was wearing a tag because he was completing a suspended sentence for a previous unrelated crime.

“To suggest that the resulting sentence of 12 years imprisonment was in those circumstances manifestly excessive is, in our view, hopeless. We refuse leave to appeal against sentence,” the judges added.