Man Faces $75,000 Fine or Prison Time for Cannabis Cultivation and Sale

A 40-year-old man who said he cultivated and sold cannabis to pay off his grandmother’s funeral bill and rebuild his house has until next March to ensure that all of the $75 000 fine imposed on him on Monday is paid.

If he does not, Davion Lavere Ricardo Miller of Bartlett’s Tenantry Road, Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church will have to spend more than six years in Dodds prison.

When the sentence was read to him by Madame Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell in Supreme Court No. 4, Miller was required to pay $15 000 of the fine forthwith, with the balance to be paid by March 28, 2024. The alternative is six years and 223 days behind bars.

He had pleaded guilty to possession, cultivation and having a trafficable quantity of the drug, which weighed 58.81 kilogrammes and had a street value of $283 600.

“A message must be sent to the public that if you are prepared to be in the drug trade, whether it be in cultivation, importation or trafficking, you must also be willing to accept the hefty penalties that accompany such, and it does not matter to what end you put the financial gain from trafficking in drugs,” the judge declared.

Police executed a warrant at Miller’s home on April 26, 2017, and the drugs were found drying and in packages around the home. There were also 305 plants of varying heights growing in the backyard.

Miller admitted ownership of the illegal drug to police while indicating that he sold the substance to get funds to rebuild his house and pay the balance of his grandmother’s funeral expenses. He had been taking care of her until she passed away in 2018.

According to a pre-sentencing report, Miller, who is self-employed, was found to have a moderate risk of reoffending, having seven previous convictions including for drug possession, assault and occasioning actual bodily harm, soliciting police, and burglary.

In his submissions, Acting Senior State Counsel Rudolph Burnett pointed to the aggravating features of Miller’s crime, including that the amount of cannabis in his possession was a clear indication he intended to make money illegally, the yard’s enclosure was galvanised about 11 feet high to conceal the illegal activity, and his previous drug convictions. Mitigating factors, Burnett said, were Miller’s early guilty plea and his cooperation with police.

The prosecutor asked that a starting sentence of 12 years in prison be imposed with an additional three years added since the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances.

He said that the convicted man should be given a one-third discount for his guilty plea and the 23 days he had spent on remand, leaving him with nine years and 11 months.