(Trinidad Express) Local history was made on Monday when 71-year-old Grace Pierre-Holder became the oldest person to be jailed for attempting to leave Piarco International Airport with cocaine in her possession for the purpose of trafficking 12 years ago.
Her 29-year-old co-accused, Daenah John-Finn, is now the youngest national on record to be charged in an airport case in relation to possession of cocaine.
Pierre-Holder, of Simon Street, Gasparillo was ordered to serve six years simple imprisonment while John-Finn, of Old Southern Main Road, Claxton Bay Junction, Claxton Bay, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of five years with hard labour.
The sentences were handed down by Justice Carla Brown-Antoine in the Fifth Criminal Court at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.
Both women were found guilty of the offence on May 3 and sentencing was postponed to allow attorneys for the convicted to make pleas of mitigation on their behalf.
Leading evidence on behalf of the State were attorneys Renuka Rambhajan and Taterani Seecharan while Pierre-Holder was represented by Senior Counsel Theodore Guerra and attorney John Heath.
John-Finn was represented by attorneys Ravi Rajcoomar and Jenna Lucky-Samaroo.
Pierre-Holder and John-Finn were among four people arrested at the old Piarco International Airport while waiting to board an American Airlines flight to London, via Miami, on February 10, 2000, when police officers discovered they had packages of cocaine concealed in the male Clarks leather shoes they were wearing.
All four were scheduled to return to Trinidad on February 13, 2000.
The other two people were Pierre-Holder’s daughter Michelle Leslie and John-Finn’s boyfriend Jason Connell. Sgt Miguel Montrichard, Sgt Michael Charles (now retired), Corporal Lincoln Bonnet and Michael Peters, who were all attached to the Organised Crime and Narcotics Unit (OCNU), were highly commended by Brown-Antoine.
