'Cocaine in pholouri' woman gets three years
Stabroek News
November 11, 2003
The American woman who was detained at the Timehri airport last Thursday after she tried to smuggle cocaine in sugar cakes, pholouri and egg balls will spend the next three years in jail.
Thirty-nine-year-old Karen Sue Chobot of 710 North Jordan, Allentown, Pennsylvania and Chatraj Boodlall also known as 'Shawn' of 61-62 Jacaranda Avenue, Bel Air Park, appeared before Principal Magistrate Cecil Sullivan on a joint charge of trafficking in narcotics.
Chobot was sentenced to three years imprisonment and fined $10,000 with an alternative of six months imprisonment after pleading guilty. Boodlall denied the charge and was remanded to prison until today.
Chobot, an American national, admitted that she attempted to smuggle 2.75kg of cocaine in the food items on November 6. Chobot was an outgoing passenger bound for the United States.
The court heard yesterday that the officers from the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) searched the woman's suitcases and found the substance in the food items. Egg-shaped packets of cocaine wrapped in foil paper were found in the pholouri and egg balls, while flat chocolate-shaped packets of cocaine were discovered in the sugar cakes.
Chobot was then detained. In explanation the woman said that the cocaine was concealed in the food items but she did not place them there. The accused said she had no intention of prolonging the matter.
Attorney-at-law Raphael Trotman who was present in court appeared as amicus curie (a friend of the court) on behalf of the accused.
Trotman said that unlike many foreigners who were charged in Guyana, Chobot did not allow the matter to go to trial but instead placed herself at the mercy of the court.
He explained that Chobot had fully co-operated with CANU since her detention. Trotman told the court that she came to Guyana because of a relationship and was now faced with a dilemma.
Trotman then requested that the court impose the minimal custodial sentence on the accused taking everything into consideration.
Boodlall on the other hand was implicated after Chobot was detained. He was later arrested at his Bel Air Park home. It is alleged that he prepared the food items and gave them to Chobot for her to take overseas.