Court acquits man of fencing stolen car

PHILIPSBURG – The Court in First Instance acquitted 24-year old Joel L. on Wednesday morning of stealing and fencing a car, in spite of the fact that the defendant failed to explain many details. The prosecutor demanded 26 days of imprisonment – the time the defendant spent in pretrial custody – and 100 hours of community service for fencing.

On December 15 of last year, a man whose car was stolen two weeks earlier, spotted his vehicle driving in Dutch Quarter. He alerted the police and shortly afterwards, officers stopped the car and arrested the driver.

Joel L. told the court that he had borrowed the car from a friend named Christopher to pick up someone to help out with work at a construction company where he had stated working himself a week earlier. The defendant knew the friend only as Christopher, even though he had gone to school with him, could not name the school they went to and could not provide the name of his employers either.

The public prosecutor noted that the VIN-number of the car the defendant was driving matched the VIN-number of the stolen car. “The key did not fit the door or the boot of the car,” he pointed out.” The prosecutor found no evidence that Joel L. had stolen the car but he asked a conviction for fencing. “His statements are not believable and he obtained the car under suspicious circumstances.”

Attorney Safira Ibrahim asked the court to acquit her client. “He has consistently stated that he did not know the car was stolen. He only borrowed it and he would never have used it if he’d known it was stolen. He was still on probation. He could not know that the key did not fit the door, because the car was not locked when he got in.”

The court acquitted L. of theft and of fencing, considering that there was nothing wrong with the contact in the car. That the defendant remained vague about Christopher and his employer does not add up to evidence, the judge ruled.