He has one month to pay the court just over six hundred and fifty dollars for stealing four watermelons that would have cost him only forty dollars….and if he doesn’t forty nine year old conch shell bay resident Manly Welch spend the next seven months behind bars. And the prospect of jail time is what shook this father as he started crying uncontrollably in the courtroom.
He was accused of stealing four, twenty-five pound watermelons from Queen’s Square Market fruit vendor thirty four year old Jorge Monteroso. It happened on Monday afternoon after Monteroso left his stall unattended for a few minutes. When he returned, 4 large watermelons were gone and by-standers told him that Welch took them.
Manly Welch pleaded guilty, admitting that he stole the fruits and asked the court before he was sentenced to consider that he has four children to take care of. But it’s neither that appeal nor the tears that saved him; Welch was spared prison time because he had a clean record. But he’s not off the hook yet, because if he is unable to come up with the six hundred and fifty five dollars by the end of September, he will be sent to jail for 7 months.
