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Will Gino Get A Jail Sentence?
posted (January 30, 2014)
Tomorrow morning at 9:00 the chief Magistrate Anne-Marie Smith will sentence Corporal 259 Gino Peck for keeping an unlicensed firearm, keeping unlicensed ammunition, and keeping prohibited ammunition.

Because of the strict gun laws the judge's hands are tied and it is considered a virtual inevitability that he will be sentenced to the mandatory minimum sentence of 3 years for some of the ammunition and 5 years for the others - with the sentences to run concurrently. Today Gino Peck's wife told us that they have been trying to prepare themselves what will more than likely happen tomorrow:..

Loretta Peck - Wife of Gino Peck
"I am prepared; I try to focus on all my emotions and my energy for tomorrow. I don't want my husband to see me breaking down. Come tomorrow we expect a victory."

Daniel Ortiz
"I know that many media houses have sought you out to get your opinions on the judgment and the outcome, but what has the public response been like - persons who see you? Is it like they are on your side, what is it?"

Loretta Peck - Wife of Gino Peck
"Yes it's like that. I had to do some errands this morning and people just come up to me and: can I give you a hug, I am sorry to hear, I don't really know your husband but listening to the radio and everybody saying that he didn't deserve what is happening. It really boosts me up and gives me that energy to face tomorrow."

Daniel Ortiz
"Can we ask you one last thing? How have you been dealing with the fact that your husband - you've always expected that he will come in late from this particular tour, so you would just stay up late to wait on him. How have these nights been where it's the transition where you might not see him for a while?"

Loretta Peck - Wife of Gino Peck
"When that time comes then I will just have to deal with that."

The conviction has created outrage within the rank and file of the department where Gino Peck is considered a clean cop. It has also provoked the ire of the senior command which issued an extraordinary statement yesterday saying it is quote, "saddened by the manner in which the decision to proceed with criminal charges against Corporal Peck was made...it could have been properly dealt with through its own internal disciplinary process... the department was not given the opportunity to handle this matter as they have customarily done."

Again, we stress, these are the words of an official statement from the department which makes arrests and presses criminal charges. In this case though, the charges were brought by one of its elite units, the controversial GSU - which led the search on Peck's home. The statement is clearly indicative of a profound rift in the department between the rank and file and the elite units which operate, to some extent, with a great degree of autonomy. Today in an interview with the media, the Leader of the Opposition said it is a troubling state of affairs:..

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
"Certainly when I listened to the wife and son of Corporal Peck, I was very moved and very touched by their personal pleas on his behalf. But what is troubling to me as leader of the opposition is that there does seem to be an erosion on the relationship between the police and the office of the director of public persecution and in any democratic society that is dangerous and there also seems to be a division within the police department itself - between the gang suppression unit and the rank and file if you like of the police force where they seem to be at odds and that too is very troubling, it is very dangerous, it is cause for concern."

The activist group, COLA also issued a statement today saying quote, "From start to finish, the pursuit of Corporal Peck by the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) bears the hallmarks of a vindictiveness." End quote. The statement asks the DPP to recommend leniency for Corporal Peck at his sentencing on Friday.

The Department also says it stands by Corporal Peck, and will pay all legal fees for his appeal.

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