By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
A JUDGE was asked to impose the most lenient sentence possible for a woman convicted of having a role in the accosting and killing of businessman Kurt McCartney.
Sonia Timothy, lawyer for Lyndera Curry, said yesterday that based on the evidence at trial, the actions of her client amounted to manslaughter by negligence.
Such an offence, she said, carried a five-year prison term on the law books.
Curry, Thorne Edwards, Okell Farrington and Sumya Ingraham were on trial for nearly two weeks concerning McCartney’s murder and armed robbery.
On December 14, 2015, a jury took three hours to return verdicts for each of the accused persons after they had been excused to deliberate on the evidence.
Edwards was unanimously convicted of murder and was found guilty of armed robbery on a majority verdict of 9-3. Curry was acquitted of murder but found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter by 11-1. The same count was returned on her conviction for armed robbery.
Farrington and Ingraham were acquitted of murder, manslaughter and armed robbery. Businessman and community activist Terry Delancy, who had been accused of being an accessory to the murder after the fact, was, for legal reasons, acquitted of the charge following the close of the prosecution’s case.
It was alleged that Edwards shot McCartney in the face when he became involved in an argument between Curry and McCartney. The prosecution maintained that McCartney was crushed when Farrington, Ingraham and Curry allegedly rolled over his body as they fled the scene in the victim’s Hummer. It was alleged that Edwards ran away after the shooting.
The Crown is seeking the discretionary death penalty for Edwards and life imprisonment for Curry.
Ms Timothy yesterday said that the armed robbery conviction in her client’s circumstance did not concern the use of a firearm, as she had no weapon.
She also asked the court to bear in mind the favourable probation report presented that painted Curry as a previously employed and productive citizen and a mother of a three-year-old child. She had no prior convictions.
Ms Timothy also stressed that her client’s psychiatric report revealed that she suffered from “adjustment disorder” while at the prison, which had left her client with feelings of anxiety and inability to sleep.
Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs said he would have a written decision on June 21 at 9.30am.
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