Local News

Thirty-two year old Foina Mitchell, a food vendor of Faber’s Road, charged with kept ammunition without a gun license, was acquitted of the charge today.

Mitchell was also charged with aggravated assault and harm on a female officer of the GSU but those charges were dismissed yesterday because the case file was not available. Mitchell’s common-law husband, 38 year old Mark Lewis was charged jointly with her for kept ammunition without a gun license but he was not brought to trial because he was shot and killed on February 2, 2012, while he was sitting in his van in a parking lot at Universal Health Services.

The incident occurred on August 15, 2011. The police executed a search at a house on Faber’s Road and alleged that they found one round of point 32 calibre ammunition in a black and pink bag that was in one of the rooms. Mitchell was not there at the time. Only Lewis was present. The prosecution called three witnesses to prove its case.

After the prosecution closed its case, Mitchell’s attorney, Brian Neal submitted that she does not have a case to answer to because the case was inherently weak and there were inconsistencies in the testimony of the witnesses. Neal submitted that there was no evidence to prove that Mitchell resided at the house because a water bill was not evidence.

He also submitted that the witnesses gave different descriptions of the bullet and the chain of custody procedure was not followed because the bullet was in the possession of the arresting officer for 24 hours. In addition to that he said that the arresting officer wrote a statement and signed it on August 16, 2011 in which he spoke of things he did the following day and in November of the same year.

After he heard a response from the prosecutor, Magistrate Dale Cayetano upheld the no case submission and acquitted Mitchell.