Today, The Notorious Darren Banks, said to the leader of the PIV gang, was sentenced to a fine of $10,000 and 3 years imprisonment for 26 ½ pounds of marijuana which was found on top of the roof of his Oleander Street home on November 16, 2010.
According to police, when they conducted a search on the house, they found an AR-15 rifle, twenty nine 5.56 live rounds of ammunition, and thirteen .223 live rounds of ammunition. As a result, they ended up charging Banks and his wife, Desiree for kept prohibited firearm, kept prohibited ammunition and drug trafficking
The case came to a close today, in the courtroom of Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer who informed him that she has reviewed the evidence of the prosecution and she is satisfied that he was guilty of drug trafficking.
She informed him that neither he nor his wife, Desiree Banks, needed to answer to the kept prohibited firearm and ammunition charges because the police department's armorer was out of the country and couldn't testify in the case.
Senior Magistrate Frazer also told him that she is only finding him guilty and acquitting his wife because he is the owner of the house. She said that she believes and that he definitely had knowledge that the marijuana was there.
Banks, who was not happy with the drug trafficking verdict, gave a mitigation plea maintaining his innocence and he claimed that he had no knowledge of the bag of weed being up on top of his roof.
He said that that his home is accessible by the river and that people often traffic through his yard which gave them access to hide the drugs there.
Senior Magistrate Frazer did not accept that as an adequate explanation and gave him the mandatory sentence for drug trafficking, since he already had three previous convictions for drug possession.
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