THE Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA) have imposed a six-year ban on the Retrieve Raiders’ national power forward Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts after he failed to appear before its Executive Committee  on Saturday, January 5, 2013 to answer the charges of allegedly threatening an official of the LABA and to further “crush” the Association in public view. In a release yesterday the Association stated it had increased the previous suspension for Roberts from all basketball-related activities, after reviewing the recent incidents which involved Roberts.
The LABA had written Roberts, informing him that their Executive Committee “has decided that you now be suspended for six years, dating back to when you were first given a six-month suspension and fined $15 000 for throwing the ball at referee Lloyd Ross causing him injury on November 13, 2012 during a sanctioned BOSAI Minerals Group Open Challenge game between your club Retrieve Raiders and the Kashif and Shanghai Kings.”
According to the LABA release, their decision to impose a longer ban takes into consideration that Roberts has been a repeated offender in openly berating association officials in public.
In the letter sent to Roberts and copied to the president of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) David Patterson, the LABA further barred the national player from attending any function or basketball-related activities sanctioned by the LABA and stated that if the player fails to adhere to the ruling of the association, other measures will be taken to enforce their (LABA) penalties.