You could have called Kenrick Reneau the teflon bandit - accused of many crimes but convicted of few. But his winning streak changed today when he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years in jail. He was charged and convicted jointly for stealing more than $20,000 in cash and valuables from the home and office of Dr. Osbert Usher between august 20 and 21st of last year - during the Hurricane Felix scare.
The men were prosecuted by Senior Superintendent Chester Williams and defended by Alifa Elrington. Ebanks pled guilty to burglarizing the clinic but he said he didn't break into the home. Reneau maintained throughout that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time but Magistrate Dorothy Flowers didn't buy it and found Reneau guilty. Senior Superintendent Williams took credit for the conviction which he says was a long time coming.
Sr. Supt. Chester Williams, Prosecutor
Kenrick Reneau has been in and out of the Magistrate's Court for a number of time now, charged with several different offenses and he always goes to court and at the end there is no conviction. So a part of our strategy in the Police Department to try and get to those persons who constantly are committing a breach of the law, breaking into home, committing burglaries. I decided to take up prosecution of the matter in relation to Dr. Usher Dental Clinic and his residence during the time of Hurricane Dean. I prosecuted the matter and was successful in the prosecution.
I must say that we will be targeting more of those persons who are repeat offenders, who believe they can commit offenses and come to court and walk. I must say our prosecution branch has been doing a good job but because of the fact that they are tied up with a lot of cases, sometimes they do not have the time to really study the cases and that is why we see the conviction rate at time is low. So people like myself who have good knowledge of prosecution can come and assist in major incidents to see how best we could best present the case to court and see if we could get a conviction."
Though Ebanks pled guilty to burglarizing the office, he was convicted of burglarizing the home. Both were sentenced to 5 years for each burglary. Those sentences will run consecutively, meaning that they'll each spend 10 years.
