Younger robber gets jail time cut in nail-bar heist
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Court of Appeal has taken a year off the prison sentence given to Antonio Kelly for his part in an armed robbery at a nail bar in 2015 because he was so much younger than his co-conspirators in the crime and suffers from mental-health problems. Kelly, who was just 19 at the time, was one of three men and a woman who were involved in a joint enterprise to rob the salon of the day’s takings. While one of the robbers has never been apprehended, Paul Myles (41) and Christine Rae Smith (40), a former PA to MLAs Roy McTaggart and Winston Connolly, were charged along with Kelly.
Smith had denied the allegations and was convicted after trial while both Myles and Kelly had admitted their part in the heist. Smith, who was believed to have masterminded the ill-fated stick-up, had posed as a customer inside the nail bar in Godfrey Nixon Way, while Myles was the getaway driver and Kelly one of the masked armed men who entered the store.
They were all given 12 years for their part in the crime but Myles, who had made a later admission, had his time cut to nine years and Kelly, who pleaded guilty right after he was charged, was given the full 33% discount, reducing his time to eight years. All three had appealed the sentences and the case was heard this week.
The appeal court upheld the time given to both Smith and Myles but because Kelly was almost half the age of his criminal partners and has serious mental-health challenges, the three-judge panel found that the judge had failed to give due consideration to Kelly’s youth and vulnerability.
As well as shaving one year off the sentence, the appeal court also cut the four additional years Kelly was serving for causing death by careless driving in relation to a fatal accident in North Side in 2013 where he admitted he was rolling a spliff while driving at around 85mph. In this instance the appeal court found that the judge had not given enough consideration to the totality of the jail time Kelly received as he was sentenced for the robbery and the careless driving case at the same time. As a result they cut that term to 39 months, leaving the 22-year-old man with a total sentence of 10 years and three months.
Category: Crime, Local News
Family robbing other family gf business hahaha…jealousy
I taught him as a child. Nice, gentle kid, more often than not seemed “lost”, and you knew he was heading for trouble because he didn’t seem to receive much guidance at home. He was not mean, and certainly not vicious, maybe a bit “slow”. I can easily see how he was influenced by the older people. Nonetheless, the crimes that he committed are not minor crimes, so I’m not quite sure whether they got this verdict correct…
As usual unfuc*inbelievable. Maybe the he rolled spliffs for the appeals court. Why was he already not in jail for killing someone while driving. Then he would have never been involved in the robbery. I don’t think his age has much to do with it. Obviously a bad egg and should be given a nice permanent jail cell.
19 years old, made a mistake and punished for life.
What you call a mistake I call major crimes. Cayman needs to be serious about crime.
I suppose that 10 years and 3 months might teach him not to be robbing and driving and rolling spliff at 85 mph . Good lesson for his age . The others should have got his time added on to theirs .
I know Antonio personally… Was +/- 2 years his year group in school. Great guy once you get to know him, but definitely some mental issues underlying. Not one single person I know who smokes would even try to roll a spliff going 10 mph, much less 85. I think he tried to mutter an excuse and failed horribly..