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Ischelle Tablada Acquitted In Tax Heist Case
posted (September 1, 2017)
Last year in July, we told you about that daring robbery at the Income Tax department in which armed robbers stormed into the Belmopan office and stole almost $30,000 in tax receipts for the middle of the month. Well, one of the 5 defendants that police charged in that heist has been acquitted at the Magistrate's Court.

She's 34 year-old Ischelle Tablada, a former Government employee, and she was facing the charge of abetment to commit robbery. She stood trial before Magistrate Ladonna John where the main evidence against her was a caution statement that police say that she gave to investigators.

Police had said that she acted as the getaway driver for the robbers. Well, when that statement was examined in the criminal trial, Tablada's attorneys, Leeroy Banner and Ellis Arnold, challenged its validity on the grounds that the police forced it out of her. They say that she was coerced into signing a written statement by officers who threatened to charge her mother if she didn't cooperate. Tablada's mother is the owner of the SUV police determined was the getaway vehicle, and so, she gave the statement under duress.

Well, after a trial within the trial, the confession was not admitted, and so her attorneys made a no-case submission. Since that was the only direct evidence which tied her to crime, Magistrate John upheld the submission and acquitted her.

The other defendants, Devon Brooks Jr., David Cruz Jr. Richard Hyde and Stephanie Cruz are still facing those charges.

As you will remember that days after that robbery, police cracked the case using surveillance video, and they caught the men they believe were the robbers. The cash and vehicle they drove off in were also recovered.

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