US-based Mavado elated over son’s prison release, says attorney

Dante Brooks, son of dancehall star Mavado, is set to be released from prison after the Court of Appeal overturned his life sentence for murder and arson on Friday morning.

His co-accused, Andre Hinds, has also been set free.

The higher court sided with the attorneys for Brooks that there were issues with the eyewitness testimony.

The attorney who led the team in bringing the successful appeal, Hugh Wildman, told Loop News: “It is a lot of application that I had to do because you had to go through the entire transcript to see what the case was all about and then be able to extract the relevant grounds of appeal consistent with the principles of law. That takes time. Then you have to craft the legal arguments to support the grounds”.

“You have to comb through a lot of transcript [and]everything that took place at the trial,” Wildman emphasised.

“The critical grounds were the identification issues which were not properly dealt with by the trial judge and the prosecution led a lot of inadmissible hearsay evidence. So there were issues of law as to the admissibility of evidence that should not have been there and then the way the trial judge dealt with the identification issues which were very critical in the case,” Wildman explained.

“We were able to show how the hearsay evidence tied in with the identification issues,” Wildman said, noting that the legal team was yet to get the hard copies of the decision.

“We’re on our way to get him out”.

Asked if he had heard from Mavado, Wildman said yes.

“He’s very excited, he’s so elated in America. He can’t wait to get here; he says he’s coming out to be part of the celebration”.

Dante Brooks was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Home Circuit Court on March 19, 2021, for the 2018 killing of Lorenzo Thomas. He was also found guilty of illegal possession of firearm, and arson and ordered to serve 22 years before being eligible for parole consideration.

Additionally, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars on each count of illegal possession of firearm, and arson. The three sentences were to run concurrently.

In relation to Hinds, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, with a stipulation that he serve 17 years before being eligible for parole consideration.

He was also sentenced to 15 years each for illegal possession of firearm, and arson. His sentences were also to run concurrently.

Brooks and Hinds were charged in connection with the killing of Thomas in the St Andrew community of Cassava Piece on June 5, 2018.

Prosecutors relied on the eyewitness testimony of Thomas’ father, who indicated that he knew his son’s killers from the community.