Guilty. That was the verdict for 22-year-old Germaine Pascasio, the young man charged for the brutal of popular shopkeeper and importer Inez "Blankie" Leal. Blankie was shot three times to the face during a robbery attempt in September of 2003. He died on the spot and police later picked up Germaine Pascasio and Ernest Hinds. Only Pascasio's case made it to trial. It was a case described by the prosecutor as circumstantial because he was id'd by an off duty police officer who claims to have seen him running from the scene. But it took a jury less than two hours to return with the guilty verdict. Pascasio sat emotionless as the jury foreman read the verdict while his mother stayed outside of the courtroom and wept. She today told us justice wasn't served.
Gilda Jones, Pascasio's Mother
"Why don't they find the correct murderer? My son isn't black. In the thing they said it was a black man who had the gun, my son isn't black. Once you are poor and don't have anything, you will always stay being nothing."
Keith Swift,
But a jury just said your son is guilty.
Gilda Jones,
"Only the jury said that because everybody else said he was innocent. We came to court everyday and we saw it and we saw that there was no evidence because they said it was a black man and a red skin man."
Oswald Twist, Pascasio's Attorney
"I've been doing cases for sometime now and with the jury you could never tell. My main thing is to appeal the matter and I believe that the Court of Appeal will overturn the decision. So let us leave it for when the Court of Appeal says its final and even then there's also the Privy Council you could appeal to. I am not disappointed at all."
Blankie's family declined comment this evening. Pascasio will be sentenced on March 30th. Ernest Hinds never made it to trial because his picture appeared in a newspaper before the id parade was conducted.
