Five Year Sentence: Robbed 86-Yr-Old Woman

Rasool Ebbin, born July 1983 and now twenty-seven years-old, escaped a possible maximum twenty year prison sentence and was sentenced, in Supreme Court by Justice Charles-Etta Simmons, to two consecutive terms of two and a half years and a further term of eighteen months that will run concurrently with the total five years imprisonment.

Ebbin had pleaded guilty to seven counts involving robbery, burglary, theft and attempted theft. The offences to which he had pleaded guilty commenced with the 24th February 2010 attack and armed robbery of eighty-six year-old Estelle Dixon at the Card Cove on Queen Street.

This attack had taken place just ten days after Ebbin’s release from Westgate Correctional Facility where he had been serving a three year sentence for a previous offence. Ebbin had been arrested and charged with this offence, and had then been released on bail.

The other six counts arose from a spree of theft, burglary, and attempted theft and other offences that took place on 24th November 2010 while Ebbin was still on bail for the February offence.

Ebbins record, read out in Supreme Court, showed that his first conviction had been in Juvenile Court in 1997 when he was fourteen years old. Subsequent convictions and punishments had occurred in 1998, 2004, 2006, and 2008. The offences in 2006 and 2008 had resulted in prison sentences.

The Crown Prosecutor, Robert Welling had recommended a total sentence of eight years. Defence Counsel Elizabeth Christopher argued for a lesser sentence of a total of five years to be followed by a period of probation.

Victim impact statements from two of the victims, the eighty-six year-old Ms Estelle Dixon (February) and Ms Leighton (November) showed that each victim had been severely traumatized by the attacks that Ebbin had admitted to either supporting or perpetrating on them.

Responding to Justice Simmon’s question “do you have anything to say?”; with the orange-suited Ebbin speaking from the prisoner’s ‘dock’, Ebbin said: “I am sorry. I am really disgusted with myself and my actions.”

He went on to say that with the benefit of hindsight, he saw that he was a functioning addict and “a Jekyll and Hyde person.” He said that he wanted to get off drugs but had “been kicked off the Camp Spirit” program and that he “needed help.”

Having meted out the five year sentence, Justice Simmons asked Ebbin if he would also accept a period of Probation once he had been released. Explaining that under current law, the Court could not order Probation because he had been sentenced to the five year period, Ebbin said that he would accept a Court ordered Probationary period that would commence on his release.

With Ebbin’s agreement and after thorough explanation including a question and answer period with Ebbin, Justice Simmons ordered that Ebbin must also undergo a three year period of probation after he had been released on completion of this five-year sentence.

The time, almost six months, that Ebbin has already spent in custody since his November 2010 arrest and remand will be taken into account.

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Category: All, Court Reports, Crime