Published 16 June 2017
Appeal Court Quashes Convictions of All Four Men in 2011 Kidnapping Case. Orders Re-Trial for 3.
The Court of Appeal has quashed the convictions of all four men in the infamous 2011 Kidnapping case involving the wife of a local banker. The cases against Jumana Walters, Clayton “Yellowman” Laws, Ali Percival, and Jermaine Riley were all quashed . Clayton “Yellowman” Laws, Ali Percival, and Jermaine Riley will however remain in prison as their cases were sent back down for retrial. Walters , however is now a free man as the appeal panel overturned his conviction.
Walters was convicted with co-defendants Clayton “Yellowman” Laws, Ali Percival, and Jermaine Riley, for the October 2011 kidnapping of a bank employee and his wife. They were all sentenced to 25 years in jail on each count to be served concurrently.
Walters’ attorney Marsha Henderson argued that the trial judge should have withdrawn the matter against her client when the prosecution ended its case, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to point to Walters being part of the kidnapping plot.
According to Walters’ caution statement admitted into evidence at the trial, he claimed to have no knowledge of the kidnapping, that he had received a call to drop off food for two of his co-defendants at a house where police later caught the two men with the kidnapped woman.
Director of Public Prosecutions Valston Graham conceded that the case against Walters should not have been put to the jury.
The Appeal Justices concurred.
