Outspoken former Belize City councilor Lillette "Nzingah" Barkley-Waite was found not guilty of drug trafficking yesterday in the Magistrate's Court.
Barkley-Waite had been arrested on December 30th of last year after police searched her Jane Usher Boulevard and found a purse with 120 grams of marijuana. She claims she was set up and her Attorney Richard "Dickie" Bradley successfully argued before Magistrate Sharon Fraser that since the purse was in a filing cabinet in her downstairs office, other people had access to the filing cabinet and the office.
Also a sticking point for defense was that the police confined the search to that downstairs office and didn't look in the rest of her house. After those submissions from Defense Counsel Dickie Bradley, yesterday evening Magistrate Sharon Fraser found Barkley-Waite not guilty. That verdict was vindication for Barkley-Waite who had vowed to clear her name in an interview on New Year's Eve.