JAMAICAN national Easton Stapleton who pleaded guilty to the charge of smuggling cocaine in deodorant bottles last Friday was sentenced to three years and fined $1.4 million when he appeared before city magistrate Leron Daly on Monday.

Before sentence was read Stapleton asked the magistrate to allow him to say something. When permission was granted he stated that he was provider for three of his grandchildren since their mother had passed away recently. Also his wife did not know that he had been charged.

“I made a mistake and I am asking the court to have mercy on me. When I found out the price for the shipment I changed my mind,” Stapleton told the court.

He further stated that he was in a financial problem and his house was up for foreclosure and he was also suffering from prostate cancer. “That is why I took the offer up when I was invited here by someone to do this thing.”

Stapleton pleaded guilty to the charge when it was read to him which stated that he had 526 grams of cocaine in his possession for the purpose of trafficking on Tuesday, August 10 at the Guyana Post Office Corporation.

According to the facts he went to the post office to inquire about the procedures for posting a package. He left when he was told that a Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) officer would have to check the package before shipping.

However a CANU officer became suspicious and trailed Stapleton before confronting him at the back of Fogarty’s Department Store. The package was inspected and inside contained 20 roll-on deodorant bottles along with several markers. Further checks found that the inside of the items were laced with cocaine.